A TIME TO SOW
AND A TIME TO REAP
THE STORY OF
"AMAZING GRACE"
by
Todd S. Parkhurst
Presented to
The Chicago Literary Club
May 12, 2003
Amazing Grace is not, now, purely an old Protestant hymn. It has been termed an Icon of America by USA Today, itself an American icon of sorts. It has comforted, and reassured, many Americans; and it is known and sung by people around the world. To many it has considerable religious significance, but to many others it is not religiously significant music. Rather, to many, particularly of my age, it is an anthem of the anti-Vietnam War counterculture. Some believe it was written by Judy Collins in 1970. Others believe Arlo Guthrie wrote it, or maybe Aretha Franklin, or the possibly the Weavers, or the Limelighters, or even Elvis Presley. Still others believe it is the great grandparent of all African-American spirituals, developed by slaves before the Civil War and later popularized by the Happy Land Jubilee Singers or the Blind Boys of Alabama, all so-called Negro gospel singers, who traveled America in the 1920s and 1930s. None of the above is correct. In another sense, all of the above are true. The man who wrote those first two stanzas, and several others, was once a slave trader, and later an abolitionist. He was once a libertine, later a priest in the Church Of England. He was once a sailor, away from home for years on end, and later the consummate husband. He was at various times a smuggler, a Customs tax collector, a visionary, a bum, and a friend and spiritual adviser to William Cowper the English poet. John Newton no relation to Sir Isaac Newton was born near London on July 24, 1725, the son of John Newton, a commander of a merchant ship trading in the Mediterranean. His mother, Elizabeth was a devout Christian and John early developed an interest in Christianity. By the age of 4, John could read, and a year later he began learning Latin. In 1732, John's mother died and he was sent to live with his mother's friends, the Catletts. Seven-year-old John there met Mary Catlett, aged 3, who later became the love of his life. Soon, however, John was sent to a strict boarding school, where he turned away from religion. The day he was 11 years old he went aboard his father's ship for a voyage to the Mediterranean. Three years passed before he again saw England. When John was 19, he was impressed into service on a British man-of-war, the H.M.S. Harwich. Soon the Harwich was ordered to the south coast of England to join a fleet of warships, merchant ships and store ships in Portsmouth Sound with orders to sail to Africa. While assembling there, a hurricane struck, forcing many of the ships to slip their anchor cables and several to be sunk or stranded on the rocks. The fleet commander ordered the fleet into more protected waters, where John learned for the first time that his father was on his way to Portsmouth to attend to his ships which had been damaged during the storm. It occurred to John that his father might be able to arrange for him to transfer from the Harwich to one of the Royal African Company ships. And so John took the opportunity to desert and attempt to find his father. A group of soldiers noticed him, and he was arrested, taken back to Plymouth, and put in prison. Newton was then returned to the Harwich in chains, tied to a grating, and flogged. He was then demoted to common seaman, and all midshipmen were instructed not to speak to him. As the Harwich sailed southward, 20-year-old John Newton considered and reconsidered his recent actions. Far from seeing his fall as a natural consequence of his impulsive behavior, he began to believe that he was a victim of injustice. "My breast was filled with the most excruciating passions, eager desire to murder the captain, bitter rage, and black despair. Every hour exposed me to some new insults and hardship, with no hope of relief or mitigation, and no friend to take my part or to listen to my complaint," he would later write. Arriving at the island of Madiera, off the coast of Portugal, he noticed a sailor preparing to leave the Harwich. Upon inquiring as to how this man was permitted to leave, he was told that two sailors had been taken from an English merchant to be exchanged for two of the Harwich's men. Newton instantly asked the commander of the Harwich to be named that second man. "A little more than half an hour from being asleep in my bed, I saw myself discharged and safe on board a merchant ship," he wrote. Soon his new ship, the Levant, made sail for the coast of Guinea, now known as Sierra Leone. In due course, the Levant anchored off Plantain Island. Now turn your mind, please, to the end of 1745 and to that island. It is exceedingly hot. The island, and the mainland, some two miles distant, have no hills, rivers, waterfalls, or impressive vistas. There is a natural cove here, with a small beach, but no relief from the fierce, hot winds. Newton and the ship's captain build huts of sticks and mud covered by thatched roofs. The buildings provide a cook house, a storeroom, and a jail or dungeon for holding the slaves. In a poor garden, they grow pumpkins, watermelons and peas. The captain soon takes a mistress, phonetically named P. I., evidently a princess of the ruling Bombo tribe. Her brother, Prince Surey Bombo, begins to collect slaves from the mainland and trade them to the captain and to Newton for trinkets and garden produce. Soon the captain departs on a slave gathering trip up a nearby river, but Newton has contracted malaria and stays behind with P.I. Relations between the two, never friendly, deteriorate. When his health does not improve, she ignores him, and does not bother to feed him or supply him with water. While P.I. lives in high style, eating from china plates and with the latest in European luxuries provided by the captains of visiting ships, Newton and the slaves sleep on straw mats, and subsist on scraps from her table. "So greatly was my pride humbled, I received these with thanks and eagerness, as the most needy beggar does alms," he later recalled. He lived in an almost naked state, with heat blisters covering his skin, and "sometimes I had not half a good meal in the course of a month." Through many dangers, toils and snares,Now Newton, ill and miserable as he is, thinks, and reflects on his condition, and the circumstances which brought him to this place and situation. He realizes that if he had not deserted from the Harwich , he would not have been demoted. If he had not sinned on the Levant , he would not have become marooned on Plantain Island. If he had not been so anxious to become a successful slave trader, he would not have himself become as a slave. "When, after repeated checks of conscience, I obstinately broke through all restraints of religion, it pleased God for a time to give me up to my own willfulness and folly, perhaps as much so as any poor creature was ever given up to himself.. The way of transgressors is always hard. It proved so to me. The miseries into which I plunged myself, could only be exceeded by the dread wickedness of my heart and life." Six months later, the ship, now "fully slaved," sailed for Jamaica. As the ship was ready to sail, the Captain died, and the first mate, who hated Newton, agreed that Newton should stay at nearby Banana Island to continue working for the slaving company in Africa. Newton's fortunes changed for the better they could hardly had changed for the worst and soon he was traveling to the interior of Africa, meeting village chiefs, buying slaves, and bargaining for the favors of the chiefs' concubines. In his spare time he wrote long letters to his father in London and to Mary Catlett, the girl he had met when he was very young. When John Newton's father received the first of these letters from his prodigal son, the old ship captain alerted the captains of his African-bound ships to inquire about John Jr. Anyone who discovered him was to make certain that he was returned safely to England. In February, 1747, Anthony Gother, captain of Newton's Greyhound, saw smoke coming from a beach on Banana Island: a recognized sign of a slave trader signaling for business. John Newton Jr. took a canoe out to meet the ship. The captain was shocked to find that Newton was indifferent to being rescued. He was no longer desperate to leave Africa. Life was going well, he enjoyed his work, and pleasure was easy to come by. What could possibly entice him back to England? Worried that he might lose Newton, Captain Gother fabricated a story about a small fortune having been left him by someone who had recently died. Newton, persuaded by this story and by his rekindled desire to see Mary Catlett, joined the Greyhound as a passenger. But it was January 1748 before the Greyhound finally left the coast of Africa to make a long voyage back to England. On March 9, 1748, there began a chain of events that would become immortalized in the first two stanzas as of "Amazing Grace." Newton discovered aboard the Greyhound an English translation of the devotional classic The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a' Kempis. Newton read: "Vanity it is, to seek, and to place our hope and confidence in riches, which are sure to perish. Vanity, to cherish our ambition, and strive to attain a high and honorable station. Vanity, to indulge the flesh, and count those pleasures which draw after them grevious and lasting pains. Vanity, to be infinitely concerned for living long, and perfectly indifferent, to living well. Vanity most fatal and stupid, to determine our thoughts and cares to this present life, and never look forward to that which is to come. Be assured that they who follow their own sensual appetites do lose, not only their labor and expectation, but also their innocence and purity, the peace of their own conscience, and the favor of Almighty God."Newton began to consider these things. That very evening, the Greyhound was caught in a violent storm and the sailors began to cry out that the ship was sinking. Newton, the passenger, nevertheless took a three-hour turn manning the pumps, and then and 11 hour watch as steersman. Five hours later, Newton was given hope: he was told that the ship might not sink in spite of the 40 hours of pounding it had taken. Newton was so relieved that he offered up a prayer. Again at the ships wheel and again with time to think, he reasoned that the best course of action for him was to ask for the power of the Spirit and then to start acting as though the gospel was true. He felt he had been privileged to see his wretchedness for what it was. Only by seeing this vision of himself as helpless did God's grace seem so appealing, and so amazing. "About this time, I began to know that there is a God who hears and answers prayer," Newton said later. It was Grace that taught my heart to fear,Newton traveled to Londonderry, where he found a church to pray in twice a day, took the sacraments, and "with the greatest solemnity, engaged myself to be the Lord's forever and only his. This was not a formal, but a sincere surrender, under a warm sense of mercies recently received." He also wrote to Mary Catlett's sister: "I am now able to acquaint you that I have finished my troublesome, tedious voyage, and am safely arrived at this place. The matter of my father's message to me to return from Guinea gave me some room to hope for a handsome settlement, but I find to my sorrow that I am disappointed. Mary has been the principal object of my desires these five years past, but my financial situation does not enable me to make her suitable proposals." In response, Mary's sister gave John Newton permission to visit Mary. When he finally met her after such a long absence, he found himself lost for words. The best he could do was to get permission to write her a letter. So it was that on June 20, he wrote her an impassioned 600- word letter: "I believe no one was ever engaged in love with such slender hopes for so long a time as I have been. I hope you will consider my case with the good nature usual to you in other things and bestow a little of your charity - - one morsel for God's sake, for I am quite starved." When the return letter came he was overjoyed to find that it was not a complete rejection. "My dearest Mary, on this very day, I begin to live indeed, and to act, in all my concerns, with a spirit of firmness to which I before was a stranger." Eager, now, to win Mary's hand in marriage, he accepted the offer of a friend to make a slaving voyage to Africa and South Carolina on the Brownlow at the end of July, 1748. One of the Brownlow's ports of call on this trip was Plantain Island, the scene of his great humiliation. Here he again met P. I. and some of the slaves who had once tormented him. They were astonished to see him wearing stockings and shoes, having before only seen him naked and barefoot. He again fell ill, but both theology and experience had taught him that he needed grace rather than renewed intentions. "I made no more resolves, but cast myself before the Lord to do with me as He should please. The burden was thus removed from my conscience, and not only my peace but my health was restored. I began recovery from that hour." Filled with 218 slaves, the Brownlow set sail for Charleston, South Carolina, and by the time the ship arrived, over 60 slaves had died. Upon his return to England, Newton went to London to propose marriage to Mary Catlett. When he met with her, "I said stupid and speechless for some minutes." She told him she could not marry him. He asked again, and again she refused him -- but not so resolutely. A third time he asked, and this time she confessed her fear of leaving the safety of her own family home. Newton consoled her, and now she consented. On February 1, 1750, John Newton and Mary Catlett were married and started their life together at the Catlett home. Three months later he received an offer to undertake a slaving voyage to Africa, this time as captain. During the next years, he made three such voyages, each time keeping detailed journals and spiritual diaries, and he wrote long, detailed letters to his bride Mary. Together these documents provide the most comprehensive account extant of slaving practices on the African Coast. Newton's budding Christian faith made him unusual in the slave trade. Each day was started with an hour of prayer and on Sundays the entire crew of his slaving ship was compelled to attend a church service. The Lord has promised good to me,One slave "collected" by Newton eventually won his freedom in America, traveled to England, and there wrote an account of the experience of his capture. He related that he was kidnapped from his village by fellow villagers when he was a child and ultimately sold to a ship. Like most who came from the African interior, he had never seen the sea, or a ship, or a white man. He was amazed by the sight of the ocean, because I had never seen any water larger than a pond or Creek. "I quickly became convinced that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions differed so much from ours, their long hair, and their language, which was very different from any I had ever heard, united to confirm me in this belief." Once aboard, the slaves were taken to the lower deck, then shackled in twos on either side of the hull. The headroom was but five feet. Headquarters were cramped, dark, stifling. Cries, vomit, screams, urine, moans, and filth were continually present. Deaths were most common. How could Newton reconcile slavery, and his participation in it, with his Christianity and its requirement that he love and respect his neighbor as he loved himself? The crude logic of the day was that the language of the Africans who had been enslaved contained no words for religion, liberty, or love. Newton wrote to Mary that "I am sure that the ideas themselves have no place in their minds." Thus, to the blind minds of the time, the enslavement of these Africans was no more immoral or illiberal than the capture and confinement of an animal in a zoo. In 1754, as Newton was preparing for yet another slaving voyage, he suffered a seizure (probably a stroke) and his doctor advised him against ever sailing again. The stroke traumatized his wife Mary. She became bedridden, and Newton accepted these illnesses as further evidence of God acting in his life, this time rescuing him from a life at sea and saving him for greater activities and events. A friend and fellow ship captain used his influence to get John Newton a government job entitled Tide Surveyor at the Custom House in Liverpool in August of 1755 when John was 30. The job involved inspecting arriving ships to levy customs duties and to discover and seize smuggled cargo. Within a month, Newton began attending several evangelical Christian churches regularly. He began to study religion systematically, and began to study for the priesthood. He was drawn to the Church of England, and in 1758 he approached the bishop of York for ordination. As he expected, he was rejected because he lacked the university education required by Canon Law. But John Newton did not relinquish his dream. During the next six years, he repeatedly expressed his interest in becoming appointed a clergyman, wrote papers to prove that he had a working knowledge of Latin and the Scriptures, and developed testimonials and supporting letters from friends. A Church of England curate, Thomas Haweis, read some of Newton's letters and asked for a testimonial biography of his life. Over a period of three weeks, Newton then wrote a 25-thousand word spiritual autobiography, beginning with his childhood and ending with his crisis over ordination. So impressed was Haweis that he showed the work to his friend Lord Dartmouth, who was part of a group of wealthy and powerful evangelicals. (Dartmouth College is named after him.) One of the properties which Dartmouth owned was the Village of Olney. As the dominant landowner in the area, Dartmouth was entitled to select the clergy for the Parish Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Olney. Dartmouth selected 39-year-old John Newton, and on April 29, 1764 he was sworn in as a deacon. Two months later he became a priest, and moved with Mary to Olney. Lord Dartmouth published Newton's manuscript as a book in August of 1764. The book was a commercial success, and catapulted John Newton to the forefront of British evangelism. Newton had always loved singing hymns, but before his move to Olney he had written only a few. Some historians believe that the catalyst for John Newton's hymn writing was the arrival in the parish of a 36-year-old unpublished poet named William Cowper, who had become a converted Christian two years previously while a patient in a mental asylum. Although Cowper is now recognized as a pivotal figure in English poetry, when he came into Newton's parish and Newton's life he was unknown, unacclaimed, unemployed, and better recognized for his odd behavior than his lyrical skill. The son of a vicar, Cowper knew the Bible well, but his mental disturbances and illness began to feed delusions. Cowper became obsessed with a biblical reference to "the unforgivable sin," and to the Book of Matthew, Chapter 12, Verse 32 which provides that "Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in any age to come." Cowper became convinced that whatever that unforgivable sin was, he had committed it. Newton and Cowper became close friends. Encouraged by Cowper, Newton began to write simple hymns for his congregation, usually one a week. Newton wrote that "hymns should be hymns, not odes. If designed for the use of plain people, perspecuity, simplicity and ease should be chiefly attended to, and the imagery and coloring of poetry should be indulged sparingly." At the end of 1772, abiding by these self-imposed rules, John Newton wrote Amazing Grace. Amazing Grace! How sweet the soundAs Newton continued to compose hymns, he began to think of compiling a hymnal after his work began to be noticed in magazines and elsewhere. John Thornton, a friend of Lord Dartmouth, agreed to pay for 1000 copies of the hymnal, and Newton arranged for the profits to be used to benefit the poor of Olney. "Amazing Grace" appeared as Hymn 41 in Olney Hymns in July of 1779. After publication of the hymnal, Thornton urged Newton to move to London, where he would have greater opportunity and influence. One of those opportunities proved to be the opportunity to influence public opinion regarding the slave trade. In 1780 Newton, then 55, became rector of St. Mary Woolchurch in London. As his ministry prospered, he renewed his acquaintance with Hannah Wilberforce and took an interest in her nephew William, whose father had died, leaving him a fortune. William had been an exceptionally gifted child, entering Cambridge University at the age of 14. At 21, Wilberforce had become a Member of Parliament. Newton had known young Wilberforce as a child. Then Wilberforce had professed Christianity, but he was not particularly devout. But as he matured, he read; and the religious books he read brought about a slow and stuttered conversion strikingly similar in detail to Newton's. Newton had become Wilberforce's personal pastor, and he advised Wilberforce to keep the friends and position he had gained, and that he would be a far more effective worker for God if he used his obvious talents in the field of politics than if he gave up public life. As Wilberforce worked to integrate his Christian concerns with his political duty, a movement against slavery was coalescing, organized largely by men and women of Christian conviction. Wilberforce quickly became a leader of the movement. On October 28, 1787 Wilberforce (an aristocrat of extensive breeding) announced "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners." His friend Newton soon followed suit. In 1788, Newton published a 10-thousand word essay entitled Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade , which unambiguously condemned the activity. At the same Cowper, who had moved from Olney to a London suburb in July 1786, joined the cause. Cowper composed a ballad, "The Negroe's Complaint," which quickly became a popular anti-slavery song. In 1789, Wilberforce persuaded Parliament to pass legislation creating the Sierra Leone Company, which was authorized to colonize Guinea, where Newton had been a slave trader all those years ago. The new government of Sierra Leone by its charter, provided equality of citizens regardless of color, free education for children, and the protection of English common law. In 1796, Wilberforce introduced the Abolition of Slavery bill, and it was defeated. Annually Wilberforce reintroduced the bill, and annually it was defeated. After several bitter defeats, Wilberforce agreed not to raise the bill again for five years, but when he did, in May 1804, it passed in the House of Commons, and three years later it was passed by House Of Lords. On March 25, 1807, the King gave his assent and the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery became law. It had been Newton's prayer that he would live to see the law passed, but by now he was an old man. In October 1806 he preached his last sermon and, after a year of rapidly declining health, he died on December 21, 1807, aged 81. His epitaph, fixed to the wall of the church of St. Mary Woolmuth, can be read to this day: JOHN NEWTON, CLERK,As those Seven Angels of the old scripture carried home the soul of John Newton, his famous hymn had taken wings, too, but like Newton's Christianity, its progress was occasionally slow, uneven and halting. The British public slowly became indifferent to the work, and it began to fade from the collective English memory. But by the time of Newton's death, the religious revival later to be known as a Second Great Awakening was in progress in America, centered in Tennessee and Kentucky. It was characterized by a huge emotional outpouring resulting in members of church congregations dancing, wailing swaying, jumping, weeping, laughing, and collapsing. There had been no campaign designed to produce these results, but once the movement started, it spread like wildfire. Church meetings were moved to open fields, where the preachers set up platforms and congregants set up camps. At Stanley Creek there were 8000 people, and at Cane Ridge in August 1801, at a meeting that lasted for five days, 12,000 people attended, and more than 300 were "struck down." with religious fervor. This new style of meeting demanded a new style of worship. Music and singing were needed, and the songs had to be simple, and interdenominational, and memorable. Camp meetings song leaders used "tune books" rather than hymnals, and it was in an early tune book that the music we now use with "Amazing Grace" was first published. Although historians differ on the point, it appears that a Dr. Charles Harvey Spilman of Lexington Kentucky, a song master, wrote the melody. The marriage of the words and music occurred in 1834 in a tune book entitled The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. This book became enormously popular, selling an estimated 600,000 copies throughout America, where the population in 1850 was only just over 23 million. The tune book effectively established "Amazing Grace" in America. The words reflected the American experience in a unique way, and the tune was memorable, upbeat, and suited to the lyrics perfectly. Now Harriet Beecher Stowe made "Amazing Grace" a point of reference in Uncle Tom's Cabin . Uncle Tom, who has been ridiculed by his master for his faith in God, lies beside a fire and has a vision of Christ. Tom looks away from the vision, and "looked up to the ever silent, ever-lasting stars, signs of the angelic hosts who ever looked down on man; and the solitude of the night rang out with the triumphant words the old hymn, which he had so often sung in happier days, but never with such feeling as now: The Earth shall be dissolved like snow,After the Civil War, the song spread to the North, helped by new urban evangelism that gave great prominence to vocal music. Perhaps the best-known practitioners were preacher Dwight L. Moody, and his assistant Ira Sankey. Choir leader, performer, composer and hymnbook compiler, Sankey became a role model in religious music and one of the best- known musical figures in late-nineteenth-century America. In 1876, Sankey published a hymnal, and included "Amazing Grace." Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos was the defining hymn book for late nineteenth-century evangelism in America. It again put "Amazing Grace" at the forefront of American music. The song was again advanced in 1900, when the grandly named Edwin Othello Excell, a music writer, publisher, singer and song leader based here in Chicago included the hymn in a book he published. Between 190 and 1919, Excell's arrangement of the song was included in 14 more collections. A revivalist added an introduction to Excell's version: Sing me the old, old melody, And Excell added a new verse: Meanwhile, in the South, black society continued to find strength and comfort in churches and music. The music may have been "Amazing Grace" taken from the white churches, but the singers and participants enthusiastically added the shouts, cries, repeated refrains, and interpretations of worshipers handed down from generation to generation in Africa and the Caribbean. From these beginnings arose fundamental changes to American music. Out of the camp meetings and country churches came the foundations of jazz and gospel, blues and rock, funk and soul. It was from music such as this that passion took precedence over control, commitment to sense over enunciation of language. The first gospel recordings of "Amazing Grace" were made in New York City in 1926 by the African-American "shouting preachers" H.R. Tomlin, and J. M. Gates. Later gospel and jazz singers Mahalia Jackson, The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, The Soul Stirrers, the Pilgrim Travelers, The Dixie Hummingbirds, Albertus Walker, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, and others recorded inspired, improvised versions of "Amazing Grace". Amazing Grace! How sweet the soundMahalia Jackson's version consumes 13 minutes and is the first verse alone. In the 1960s, folk singers discovered "Amazing Grace." It was no longer necessary for the performer to be religiously inclined, and it was no longer necessary for the audience to be religiously sympathetic, but seemingly everybody knew the tune and everybody liked it. "Amazing Grace" became a staple in the repertoire of Pete Seeger, The Limelighters, Burl Ives, The New Lost City Ramblers, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez. Arlo Guthrie performed it on the opening night of the Woodstock Music Festival with Ravi Shankar and Richie Havens. It was often used as a closing number at concerts, because the audience could be easily induced to participate. In December of 1970, Judy Collins, best known as a folk singer and heroine of the Yippie movement, recorded the work as an a cappella single. The record climbed into the best-selling charts in both Britain and America in early 1971. The single was still in the British pop music charts when it was heard by Stuart Fairbairn, the bandmaster of the Royal Scots Grays regiment of the British army. He imagined it being played on the bagpipes. The unit commander contacted a freelance producer, who then contacted RCA Victor. RCA Victor agreed to make recording but only if the regiment would guarantee to purchase 1000 copies of the record. The virtually nonexistent production budget required that the work be recorded at Redford Barracks, Edinburgh, using army blankets as sound filters and finished just three hours. Albums of military music seldom sell more than 5000 copies but a BBC disk jockey played "Amazing Grace" on his midnight show, and the BBC was flooded with letters requesting the track and asking about the record. RCA Victor then put out the music on a single record, and soon all available record pressing plants were working full time to satisfy demand. It is still the best-selling single instrumental record of all time in Great Britain. "Amazing Grace" is still amazing. The music of "Amazing Grace" is known around the world. It is sung by overtone singers in Mongolia. American travelers have encountered it in Nepal, and in Tibet. Western visitors to a Chinese church service sang "Amazing Grace" and heard a version in the Cantonese language. But perhaps best of all, while working with other students on a community project in Kenya, American college students sang a simple version of "Amazing Grace" -- and then were treated to versions sung simultaneously in French, Italian, Romanian, Urdu and Farsi and Swahili. And thus "Amazing Grace" has become an icon, here and abroad. It has been termed a sacred text in civil religion. It has become an American favorite because it duplicates the American story of rags to riches and slavery to freedom. More prosaically, it is a standard at funerals and solemn governmental and civil functions of all kinds. Dozens of so-called collateral goods and now available: you now have your choice of Amazing Grace bakeries, cruise chips, bath gels, key chains cover posters, mugs, T-shirts, and an Ohio llama farm. The Internet lists over 17,000 references to Amazing Grace. "Amazing Grace" is still amazing. |