The tide of the battle for Newton’s soul slowly turned with the dawning of gospel light, though for another six years he did not understand or enjoy evangelical preaching or conversation. A little later he began to pray and to examine the New Testament more carefully and ‘to think of that Jesus had so often derided’. In between times when he was manning the pump, he remembered the Bible warnings memorised as a child. In the day of trouble Newton began to think of, if not to call on, the Lord. But on the long voyage home the ship encountered a frightful storm and was badly damaged. Newton’s lot was now pleasant, yet he was ‘so daring a blasphemer’ that he daily invented new oaths and, though not fond of drink himself, sometimes initiated daring drinking parties among his friends. His spirit broken, Newton’s only relief in this West African period was to draw mathematical diagrams on the sand.įinally, a ship’s captain from England, acting on his father’s request, took Newton aboard as his guest. His white master, believing the worst about him, locked Newton to the deck of the ship when he went ashore, and in his ragged clothes Newton bore for hours on end the lashing of torrential rains. Half starving, Newton used to steal out at night to feed on the raw roots of vegetables. Even the African slaves secretly brought him food on occasion. He had difficulty then in getting even a drink of cold water. The African mistress of his new master treated him with cruelty and contempt, especially when he was struck down with a fever. Here Newton decided to work for a white slave trader.Ī terrible year followed. In disgrace he sailed to Madeira, where he was suddenly allowed to transfer to another ship, which was bound for Sierra Leone. His father’s influence caused him to be made a midshipman, but a year later he was publicly flogged and demoted for deserting his ship. At the age of eighteen Newton was press-ganged into the navy. The memory of her helped Newton through the next seven years and proved a somewhat restraining influence on his actions. When seventeen Newton met Mary Catlett, a 13-year-old distant relation, and fell in love with her. With his father Newton made five voyages to the Mediterranean, during which, it seemed, his soul was a spiritual battleground for on the one hand he learned to curse and to blaspheme, and on the other he three or four times made serious attempts at moral and religious reform, becoming in the course of them a vegetarian and an ascetic. Unhappily, his father, who had remarried, never gave Newton the impression of really loving him, which would have meant so much to an only, motherless child as quiet as Newton was. When only eleven Newton was taken to sea by his father, who captained a ship trading in the Mediterranean. She had herself been a Dissenter attending Dr David Jennings’ Congregational church in London. She had taught him to read fluently and he remained bookish all his days, and she had taught him about God and His ways, teaching he never quite forgot. When only six Newton lost his mother, but she left him two great possessions, the ability to read and a head knowledge of God. (1) Newton was an outstanding example of a converted infidel In his day Newton was famous for five things – he was an outstanding example of a converted infidel, he was a great hymn-writer, he was a wise spiritual counsellor, he had true charity for all Christians and his personality had an unconscious godliness about it. It is a quarter of a thousand years since the birth of John Newton and we do well to pay our little tribute to his worthwhile life.
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