On a cold December night in 1785, a young, fidgety man loitered outside a London clergyman's house in Charles Square, Hoxton. Passersby gave him little notice, but the rich, dashing, and well-connected William Wilberforce took great care that no one would recognize him here. For this was the home of John Newton—the man slandered in some quarters as an "enthusiast"—and hardly fit company for a promising young Member of Parliament.

But "enthusiast" or no, Newton was the man Wilberforce wanted to see. As a boy of eight years, he'd sat at the feet of the fascinating sea-captain, drinking in his colorful stories, jokes, songs—and perhaps most importantly, lessons of faith. Yet Wilberforce's mother disliked Newton's "methodism" and forbade her son to visit Newton in Olney. Newton feared he'd lost the boy. He wrote to his poet friend William Cowper that religious sentiments in Wilberforce "seem now entirely worn off, not a trace left behind."

Now, in a moment of spiritual crisis, wondering whether ...

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