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Turner has much more to say about Newton, but his not-to-be-missed point is this: Newton's conversion did not bring him immediately to see the evils of slavery. Morally speaking, he was a slow learner. Turner remarks on the irony of the tenderness of this ship captain's letters home to his beloved Mary while he showed complete lack of concern for the African families he was breaking up. A telling passage from one letter cites "the three greatest blessings of which human nature is capable" as "religion, liberty, and love." But referring to those he had helped to enslave, he wrote, "I believe . . . that they have no words among them expressive of these engaging ideas: from whence I infer that the ideas themselves have no place in their minds," as if blacks are not human!

Though such moral blindness is obvious to us, it was hardly unusual among devout Christians of his time. And when in God's Providence it came time for Newton to take a stand, it was again through ironic agency. Newton met William Wilberforce when the future politician was a very rich orphan eight years of age. The two struck up a spiritual friendship, and when as a young man Wilberforce had a spiritual awakening, he sought out Newton, like Nicodemus under cover of night. It was Newton who moved Wilberforce to apply his Christian principles to his politics. But when it came to denouncing the slave trade, Newton would not commit himself publicly until the mid-1780s—nearly 30 years after the issue was first broached in Parliament, 20 years after the Countess of Huntingdon began campaigning for equal treatment of the races, and 14 years after John Wesley wrote his Thoughts on Slavery. Turner argues that it was Wilberforce who finally got Newton to go public with his concerns about the slave trade. The mentee challenged the mentor to consistent Christian principle.

For all its fascinating detail about John Newton, Turner's book is really about "Amazing Grace." And here the book provides additional history that is otherwise hard to find.

First, it details the background of the hymn's most familiar tune. If your denomination's hymnal was published before 1991, chances are it improperly credits the tune to James Carrell and David Clayton's shaped-note songbook Virginia Harmony (1831). But Turner details the sleuthing done by Anglican hymnologist Marion Hatchett, whose 1991 essay revealed that two earlier forms of the tune were published in Charles Spilman and Benjamin Shaw's Columbian Harmony (1829). It remained, however, for William Walker's Southern Harmony (1835) to marry Newton's text to the tune Americans grew to love. Turner praises Walker's choice as "real genius" and "a marriage made in heaven." Turner cannot restrain his enthusiasm: "It was as though the tune had been written with these words in mind. "The music behind 'amazing' had a sense of awe to it. The music behind 'grace' sounded graceful. There was a rise to the point of confession, as though the author was stepping out into the open and making a bold declaration, but a corresponding fall when admitting his blindness."

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March (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47