The Hymns We Sing: Amazing Grace

The original words are by John Newton (1725-1807), whose earliest education was at the hand of his mother, a devout dissenter.  She had him memorize biblical passages and taught him hymns, especially those of Isaac Watts.  His mother died when Newton was six, and he began, as he says “to mingle with idle and wicked boys.”  Newton’s father, a merchant shipper, later sent him to a boarding school in Essex, where he spent two unhappy years and developed “wild” behaviour.  After that he began working on his father’s ship; later he was press-ganged onto a Royal Navy ship, but his bad behaviour caused the ship’s captain to have him transferred to a slave trading ship bound for west Africa.  There, Newton worked for a slave trader but became a slave himself; he was treated cruelly and his behaviour worsened.  Newton later  called himself during this period “an infidel and a libertine.”  In 1748 an emissary from his father managed to get him on a ship for England, and during that voyage a violent storm threatened to capsize the ship off the coast of Ireland.  Newton began to pray for God’s mercy, and when the storm cleared he attributed it to his prayers.  He regarded that event as the beginning of his full conversion to evangelical Christianity.  Newton continued to work in the slave trade for several years, both as a captain of slave ships in the triangular trade and, after a stroke ended his seafaring, as an investor in others’ operations.  He gave up his bad habits.  He studied Hebrew, Greek and Syriac with the intention of becoming a priest, and in 1764, after some delays because of his past, he was ordained to the priesthood.  He was appointed Curate in Olney, near Bedford, where he remained for 16 years.  Newton’s preaching was so popular that the church built a gallery to accommodate the crowds that came to hear him.  In 1779, he became the Rector of St Mary Woolnoth Church in Lombard Street, London, one of two evangelical priests in the city.  There, Newton met William Wilberforce and later became the MP’s strong ally in the abolitionist movement . 

Soon after Newton’s appointment in Olney, the poet William Cowper moved to the village and the two men collaborated on a book of hymns, Olney Hymns  (1779) which contained three of Newton’s poems: “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds,” “Glorious things of thee are spoken,” and “Faith’s review and expectation,” now known by its opening phrase, “Amazing grace.”  (The original title perfectly describes the poem, which looks back to the speaker’s past and forward to his future).  After Olney Hymns Newton’s poem virtually disappeared from English hymn collections for the next two decades, though it flourished in the U.S., where, in the last decade of the 18C, four variants of “Amazing Grace “ were printed in Baptist, Congregationalist and Dutch Reformed hymn books.

The words of the hymn were first set to music in A Companion to the Countess of Huntingdon’s Hymns, ca. 1808, compiled by William Green.  He paired the words with the tune “Hepzibah” by John Jenkins Husband (1758-1825).  They were first paired with the tune commonly used now, an American folk tune called “New Britain,” in shaped notes in Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (1835), compiled by William Walker (aka Singin’ Billy).  


Walker used all six of Newton’s stanzas, arranged in three parts, with the melody in the middle part. This tune borrows elements from two other campground songs, “St Mary” and “Gallaher.”  One or more of these three tunes may have had Scottish roots.  REH calls the tune “Amazing Grace”; it is arranged by Robert Ramskill from a “Scottish traditional melody.”  The arrangement with triplets in the first phrase of each of two lines is very similar to the arrangement by Judy Collins of 1972 and to the tune for bagpipes called “Traditional, Newton.”

The stanza commonly printed as the final stanza of the hymn, beginning, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years.” Is not by Newton, nor is any author known.  The attribution to John Rees in REH  and elsewhere is not possible, since the stanza was in print before he was born.  It first appears as a part of “Jerusalem my happy home,” a 16C poem of which there are many variants, all related in some way to one of two texts: one of 26 quatrains by “FBP” and another of 44 quatrains by William Prid.  The stanza is mismatched with Newton’s poem, since it changes the speaker from first-person singular to first-person plural.  It appears to have become attached to “Amazing Grace” via Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1862 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  In chapter 38 of the novel  the character Tom sings this stanza with two stanzas of Newton’s poem.  The wide popularity of the novel seems to have resulted in the stanza’s permanent attachment to Newton’s poem.

 

Now you know! Join us on September 15 at 10:30am on the Johnson Street Lawn as we worship outside and sing this favourite hymn!