King Alfred’s Victory Over the Great Heathen Army at Ethandun, c. May 6, 878

ne of the most pivotal battles in the history of Christendom occurred in the southernmost English kingdom of Wessex with nothing short of the future of Christianity at stake. Like so many deliverances of God’s people before and since, it came at the lowest ebb in their fortunes, after years of loss and torment, invasion and subjugation, with the hero of the hour being afflicted in body with various ailments and burdened with the duty of kingship at his kingdom’s darkest hour. Such is the stuff of legend. Such is the tale of Alfred the Great’s defeat of the heathen host at Ethandun (or Edington).

Battle of Ethandun Memorial Stone

It is fitting that King Alfred—a man credited with first envisioning a united, Christian England—should have enjoyed so long a fascination in English literature, with ballads and novels and histories having been ceaselessly dedicated to his legacy, as he himself made an incalculable contribution to the same in his own age. His legacy is one that must not be forgotten, one that unequivocally stands for a Christian England, with Christian laws and Christian erudition, against those who would supplant the Gospel with warped creeds of their own. King Alfred’s own example was one of generous willingness to make peace when possible, to convert rather than destroy, but in the end, to go down fighting rather than relinquish a country claimed by Christ to those who love death and death’s dark works.

King Alfred (849-899)

Viking Ships besieging Paris, 845

For generations before Alfred’s own reign, the island we now know as England—then a composite of various Briton and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms—had suffered from raiders coming in from the sea in their longboats to pillage and destroy its rich lands. These raiders had dragons carved into the prows of their ships and Thor’s hammer hung about their necks; they worshiped angry gods who called them to angry deeds, and their favored places of attack were monasteries. Even their very name, that of “Viking”, is more a descriptor associated with their bloody vocation than any particular ethnic link. They were the outcasts of their own peaceful, trade-oriented societies in the modern day countries of Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

Viking Ships with their dragon insignia

Reenactment of Vikings attacking and burning a village

Alfred’s grandfather had won a great victory against these raiders in his own day, cementing the kingdom of Wessex as independent, and raising hopes in the surety of his dynasty. Now in the mid 800’s, under the kingship of his elder brother, Prince Alfred continued to fight these ruthless incursions. The two brothers fought four battles, and suffered defeat at three of them. They gained one solitary victory against the heathen at Ashdown. The courage and fervor he displayed that day earned the young Prince Alfred his first sobriquet, “the Wild Boar of Ashdown”.

A detailed map of England from 865-872, showing the routes of and battles with the Viking Great Heathen Army

Such success was fleeting, the heathen army was far from fully vanquished at Ashdown, and soon were reinforced by a great summer army arriving from their homelands. To make matters worse, Alfred’s older brother, King Æthelred I, was gravely wounded in battle and succumbed to his wounds in April of 871.

By such tragic circumstances, and caught in a most unenviable position, Alfred’s own kingship began. The attacks he had once faced with his brother continued unrelenting in the wake of his brother’s death. At a constant martial disadvantage and with the threat of butchery lingering constantly over his citizenry, Alfred first offered to buy peace from the Vikings. Such a choice did not endear him to most of his own folk, though it was becoming a common tactic by Saxon kings to buy time and harmony. It was a flimsy bribe at best, one they knew would not last. So did Alfred, yet by careful statecraft he managed to enact multiple treaties with the heathen Vikings, often suffering betrayal after betrayal from them in turn.

Viking invaders conquered by strength as well as intimidation

Arrival of the Viking Raiders

In the next few years, the Viking hordes gobbled up each independent kingdom lying north of Wessex; no amount of tribute or offer of alliance was accepted by them for long. Ravenous and ever dissatisfied, various Viking leaders drained each king dry, and when one could no longer deliver his payments, they would supplant him. Viking law was established throughout the conquered lands in each case, and Christian practices with Christian ethics were entirely erased. Those who would not submit were put to death, or fled to Alfred’s Wessex for sanctuary. This teetering refuge of Christian independence would be hailed as “the last kingdom”, and Alfred was looked to as her sole instrument of preservation.

Viking invaders swept all opposition before them

Invasion into Wessex came again in the year 878, from land and sea, and a Viking king, Guthrum by name, even managed to seize Alfred’s capitol at Winchester, forcing Alfred and those faithful to him to flee and take refuge in the marshy wilderness outside. While Alfred was thus brought low and every day met with the suggestion of abandoning his cause permanently, the heathen King Guthrum was enjoying the pleasures of the captured capitol—among them Alfred’s remarkable library of translated Gospels and confessions.

The Boyhood of Alfred the Great by Edmund Blair Leighton, depicting Alfred’s very studious and scholarly bent, even from a young age

Then, in May of the same year came the pivotal battle of Ethandun, when Guthrum went out to hunt Alfred in his marshy hideaway and Alfred’s valiant men of Wessex rallied to him one more time. They clashed in the fields of Wiltshire, near the old landmark of the White Horse, a gigantic chalked equine figure that was ancient even by Alfred’s time. The final battle, the white horse, and Alfred’s last ditch defense of his land has been immortalized time and again, particularly in G.K. Chesterton’s Ballad of the White Horse. In it he imagines in dramatized fashion what the more factual Anglo Saxon Chronicle cryptically informs us was a monumental victory. The ballad begins, as all good hero-tales do, at the lowest ebb of near defeat, only for the tale to soar, as it did in real life, to a victory that would change the trajectory of the West forever.

Aerial view of the Uffington Horse, Oxfordshire, England…

Similar ancient hillside carvings of white horses appear throughout the English countryside

The victory at Ethandun brought an abrupt halt to the Viking rampages of Christian lands and ensured the continuation of that system of justice that would become, in time, English common law. By securing Wessex, the battle at Ethandun laid the groundwork for Alfred’s dream of a united England, securing the peace and prosperity required for his later reforms, ones which strengthened his kingdom militarily, administratively, and culturally. His establishment of burhs (fortified towns) and naval defenses, and his zealous promotion of scholarship helped Wessex become a respected capitol of Christian learning.

King Alfred the scholar

The division of England under “Danelaw” after the treaty between King Alfred and King Guthrum

Alfred’s successors—his son Edward the Elder and grandson Æthelstan—built on this victory to reconquer all those kingdoms previously ruled by the Vikings, eventually amalgamating them into a single kingdom of England, united under the banner of Christ.

Of all outcomes of the battle of Ethandun which we remember today, most surprising was that of the public conversion and baptism of Alfred’s fierce Viking opponent, King Guthrum. Upon this great change, these two former enemies became responsible for the establishment of “Danelaw” in England, which fostered peaceable relations between Saxon and Viking settlements living side by side.

King Alfred and court witnessing the baptism King Guthrum, known afterwards by his Christian name of Æthelstan

By the time of Alfred’s grandson, King Æthelstan in the early 900’s, most Viking warlords had followed Guthrum’s example and converted to Christianity, proving Alfred’s own conviction that while martial defense is often necessary, there is nothing so powerfully absorbing as the work of Christ in the hearts of even the darkest of our enemies.

Image Credits: 1 Ethandun Memorial Stone (wikipedia.org) 2 King Alfred, Winchester (wikipedia.org) 3 Viking Siege of Paris (wikipedia.org) 4 Viking Dragon Ships (wikipedia.org) 5 Village Burning (wikipedia.org) 6 Great Heathen Army (wikipedia.org) 7 Viking Warrior (wikipedia.org) 8 Viking Landing (wikipedia.org) 9 Viking Ship Battle (wikipedia.org) 10 Boyhood of Alfred (wikipedia.org) 11 Uffington Horse, 1 (wikipedia.org) 12 Uffington Horse, 2 (wikipedia.org) 13 King Alfred the Scholar (wikipedia.org) 14 Danelaw Map (wikipedia.org) 15 Baptism of Guthrum (wikipedia.org)

Death of John Foxe, Author of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, April 18, 1587

he Bible is replete with commands to chronicle and remember the great deeds of our Lord and the acts of His humble instruments—the saints throughout time. Their heroic acts of faith are separated from us only by their ordained place in the continuum of time and our short lifespans, and that separation is a small drop in the bucket of the everlasting fellowship we will share together in heaven. From the Apostle Paul’s account of the “great cloud of witnesses” in the book of Hebrews to God’s own command in Genesis to Moses after the defeat of Amalek to “write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua”, we are assured of two things: He is faithful and we are forgetful.

Joshua fighting Amalek

At the height of the Protestant Reformation in Europe, one Englishman named John Foxe found himself an exile from his mother country, forced to shelter in neutral Switzerland as his friends, mentors, and fellow congregants were put to death back home for their Protestant faith. Oxford educated and accustomed to earning his living by the printing trade, an idea formed in Foxe’s mind that soon engrossed all his energies: he would compile a record of the persecution of God’s people throughout the ages.

John Foxe (1516/1517-1587)

Before having to flee England for his life and welfare, Foxe himself had cast in his lot with the fledgling Nonconformists, thereby lost his position at Oxford (under King Henry VI), and his family had disowned him as a heretic. Adrift in Switzerland, he had found a strong community of other Protestant refugees, one of them being Scotland’s famous John Knox who encouraged him in his vision. Foxe published his first volume in Latin—the universal language of scholars—and its themes dealt none too subtly with persecutions in previous centuries in England, highlighting the Reforming movements of John Wycliff and his followers, known as Lollards.

An illustration from the first edition of Foxe’s Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church, more commonly known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, first published in 1563

John Wycliffe sending out a band of itinerant preachers who became known as Lollards

While Foxe was in the process of publishing this first book, a new monarch ascended the throne back in England. Her strict adherence to the Catholic Church and drastic measures to root out all those who would not bow to its mandates earned her the monicker “Bloody Mary”. All Bibles in English were sought out and destroyed, and those who owned them and would not recant from their faith were tortured and put to death by public burnings. Such tales of woe reached Foxe in Switzerland, among them those of the heroism of his close friends, Tyndale, Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer—all martyred for their faith and in the cause of preserving God’s Word in the common tongue.

Martyrdom of William Tyndale (1494-1536)

Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)

Foxe compiled into a second volume the stories that reached him from the faithful back in England, which he initially published in a small release in Basel, Switzerland. Shortly after this, yet another English queen replaced the previous—her name was Elizabeth, and under her more tolerant policies, Foxe felt safe to return to his homeland and take up pastoral work. There, at home in England, Foxe spent years in further study, tracking down documents and certain eyewitnesses to martyrdoms, and afterwards produced an expanded work of his volume on martyrology. Once completed, the book boasted a total of 1,800 pages, embellished with numerous illustrations sparing no detail pertaining to the gruesome fates of the faithful sufferers. Foxe translated this work into English so that it might be read by the common man and had it published by John Day in London in the year 1563.

A 1562 portrait of Publisher John Day (c.1522-1584) from the frontispiece of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs

Basel, Switzerland as viewed from the Rhine River, with the Protestant Cathedral dominating the landscape

A still later edition was published in 1570, revised and enlarged to some 2,500 pages to include the history of persecution from the Early Church forward, although scrupulously exempt from any mention of Catholic persecution, it should be noted. Under Elizabeth’s direction this new volume was ordered displayed alongside the Holy Bible in every church, common hall, and college throughout England.

The title page to the 1563 edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, heavily illustrated to show the breadth of history covered

The Reformation of the sixteenth century had brought about change in culture and not just the church—there was a literacy revolution afoot unlike any seen before. Average men and women were now capable of owning books due to the proliferation of the printing press, and the education required to comprehend them kept apace. The great Reformer William Tyndale’s hope for the ‘humble ploughboy to know more of the Scriptures’ than the pretentious clergy had come into being. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs as it became known, was second only to the Divine Word in its reach during that time—a time that boasted authors like Shakespeare and Moore. Vicars read from it during Sunday services. Francis Drake read it aloud on the Western seas. It inspired the upcoming generation of Puritans. It took the world by storm. But the rigors of his research also took a toll on Foxe’s personal health, and he went to be with his Lord and the saints whom he so diligently honored on this day, April 18, in the year 1587.

An engraving of John Foxe, captioned: “The true Picture of John Foxe, who Gathered together and published the Actes and Monuments of the Universall History of the same, wherein is set at Large the Whole Course of the church, from the Primitive age to these Latter times, Especially in this Realme of England”

St. Giles-without-Cripplegate, London—final resting place of John Foxe

Foxe’s incredible work is still in print today, unabridged and as stirring as ever, a harrowing reminder of the price those who have come before us paid for their faith—a price still exacted to this day from our brothers and sisters all over the world. A compilation of stories with no earthly happy ending, whose common denominator is only one of the most feared mortal things on earth—death—is only a fortifying read to those whose faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Image Credits: 1 Joshua fighting Amalek (wikipedia.org) 2 John Foxe (wikipedia.org) 3 Illustration (wikipedia.org) 4 Wycliffe and Lollards (wikipedia.org) 5 Martyrdom of Tyndale (wikipedia.org) 6 Martyrdom of Cranmer (wikipedia.org) 7 John Day (wikipedia.org) 8 Basel, Switzerland (wikipedia.org) 9 Title Page (wikipedia.org) 10 Foxe, from his Book of Martyrs (wikipedia.org) 11 St. Giles, Cripplegate (wikipedia.org)

The Death of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, April 4, AD 397

ntrusted by Providence with the great task of leading the renowned Augustine of Hippo to Christ and baptizing him into the church, Ambrose of Milan was a model bishop and servant of the Gospel during his lifetime. Commended as one of the greatest of the early church fathers, Ambrose was a statesman turned bishop, a fearless defender of orthodoxy and a studied theologian that each subsequent generation of pastors has learned from greatly.

Ambrose surrounded by his books

Ambrose was born in the province of Gaul, where his father served as the Roman governor there. After the death of his father when he was quite young, Ambrose’s Christian mother moved the family to Rome so that Ambrose might receive the best education available at the time. He was raised to be a skilled poet, orator, and lawyer, in close association with men of the church, and after practicing law in the Roman courts for a time, Ambrose was himself named governor of the entirety of northern Italy, and headquartered in Milan.

A scale model of the ancient Roman city of Trier (Augusta Treverorum), birthplace of Ambrose, in the Roman province of Gaul—note the Roman Circus and Amphitheater as prominent features of the landscape

The Roman province of Gaul as it would have been shortly before the birth of Ambrose

At this time there was a great crisis in Christendom that greatly affected Milan: a schism tearing the church apart between the Nicean Christians and the Arian Christians. The debate centered around the full divinity of Christ and the orthodox understanding of the Trinity, doctrines that years before a man named Arius had challenged. So greatly divided was the church at Milan that they insisted on the irregular practice of maintaining two Bishops, one for each sect. Such an arrangement hardly promoted harmony or the effective administration of the church, but under Ambrose’s civil governorship, the parishioners found at least their temporal well-being cared for to a great degree.

The First Council of Nicea in 325—Arius is pictured condemned at the feet of the Council

A most unexpected calling arose for Ambrose when the Arian Bishop Auxentius died in 374. The city of Milan was divided over who should replace him—if he should be replaced at all—and tensions were high. As governor, Ambrose assembled the people and used his oratorical powers to help forestall violence in the settlement of this dispute. Yet, even while Ambrose was still speaking, a cry from the crowd rose up and turned into a chant: “Let Ambrose be bishop!”

Saint Ambrose in His Study, Spanish, Palencia, ca. 1500—on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY

Ambrose himself had been a noted opponent of the Arian creed in his personal life, yet his fairness and piety in civil matters was so respected that he was universally agreed upon to become the new bishop of a consolidated church of Milan. So it was that the thirty-five-year-old governor, to his great dismay, was elected the city’s pastor by will of the people and a confirming order from the Emperor himself.

A marble portrait of a young Gratian (359-383), future Emperor, who would confirm Ambrose as Bishop

Despite this unplanned calling to ministry, Ambrose diligently set himself to bolster his youthful studies in theology and soon became an incredible preacher and a deft defender of orthodox doctrine. He combatted paganism and heresy with diligence, maintained the independence of the church against civil overreach, and championed morality. He confronted political leaders—even emperors—when necessary, and had to defend his cathedral repeatedly from soldiers sent by the same to bend his theology to their whims. He wrote books, treatises and commentaries on the Bible that are still consulted to this day. He is credited with introducing the tradition of singing hymns into the western church. He modeled for others the pastoral attitude of visiting the sick, providing for the needy and championing the rights of those without representation. Ambrose tended the grand city of Milan as a shepherd.

Ambrose of Milan (339-397) as represented in a mosaic in the church St. Ambrogio in Milan—this might be an actual portrait, made while Ambrose was living

Bishop Ambrose bars Emperor Theodosius I from entering Milan Cathedral. After the ‘Massacre of Thessalonica’ in 390, Bishop Ambrose forbade the emperor from entering and taking communion without first doing public penance, with which Theodosius complied by coming to worship in plain clothes (not his imperial robes) for several months, after which time Ambrose welcomed him back into fellowship and permitted him at the Lord’s Table once again.

Among his flock was a widow who held a great love for him and his teachings. Her name was Monica, and it was her most fervent prayer that her infidel son would come to know Christ. Ambrose prayed with Monica for this wayward son, and in time those prayers were answered—the young man’s name was Augustine. Through Ambrose’s influence and preaching, the skeptical Augustine found himself deeply impressed, sought personal counseling from the bishop and was converted.

The conversion of Augustine

Monica and her son Augustine

Ambrose continued preaching until he fell sick in 397. When distressed friends prayed for his healing, he said, “I have so lived among you that I cannot be ashamed to live longer, but neither do I fear to die; for we have a good Lord.” On Good Friday, April 3, 397, Ambrose lay with his hands extended in the form of the cross, moving his lips in prayer. His friends huddled in sadness and watched. Sometime past midnight their beloved bishop passed to his good Lord.

Image Credits: 1 Mosaic of Ambrose (wikipedia.org) 2 Model of Trier (wikipedia.org) 3 Roman Gaul (wikipedia.org) 4 Council of Nicea (wikipedia.org) 5 Ambrose in his study (wikipedia.org) 6 Young Emperor Gratian (wikipedia.org) 7 Ambrose with his books (wikipedia.org) 8 Ambrose barring Theodosius I (wikipedia.org) 9 Conversion of Augustine (wikipedia.org) 10 Augustine and his mother Monica (wikipedia.org)

“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!”— Patrick Henry’s Appeal to Arms, March 23, 1775

atrick Henry was one of the foremost Virginians of his day in an era teeming with genius and exceptionalism. Often referred to as our forgotten founding father, Henry was a self-educated lawyer, an incredible autodidact, one who served as the first governor of the state of Virginia and became a member of the First Continental Congress. But it was for his extraordinary power as an orator that Patrick Henry is best remembered, earning him the moniker, “The Trumpet of the Revolution”.

Patrick Henry (1736-1799)

Henry’s extraordinary “Give Me Liberty” speech—delivered on the 23 of March, 1775, at Richmond’s historic St. John’s Church—remains one of the single most famous instances of rhetoric in our nation”s history. Delivered a year before the fateful signing of the Declaration of Independence, Patrick Henry”s dire address to his fellow displaced delegates of the Second Virginia Convention remains one of the most passionate enunciations of the American ideal ever articulated, and a warning of Shakespearean eloquence against willing blindness to the threats of our times.

Many artists’ renditions exist of this famous speech

An unlikely revolutionary, Patrick Henry was known to be a deeply conservative man, one who was moderate in action and practice. He was demonstrably loathe to indulge in any kind of radicalism that might erupt into violence—be that rhetorical, political, or martial. Indeed, he was the faithful heir of the settled colonial gentry, devoted to conventional Whig principles embodied in the rule of law, noblesse oblige, and the maintenance of corporate order. While a practicing Anglican, Henry was a devout Calvinist from childhood, and his theology imbued him with a rightful suspicion of humanist ideals. He espoused belief in man”s inherit depravity and the rigorous necessity of constraining it by judicial means; he was the perpetual champion of small government while eschewing the alternative of democratic anarchy.

The view from Henry’s pew box at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA

Naturally gifted with the power of persuasion, Henry was an early driving force behind the appeals and petitions for leniency in colonial matters sent to King George III and his parliament back in England. For a decade he labored alongside his fellow representatives in begging for a peaceable, legal and honorable resolution of the disputes surrounding representation and taxation.

His fellow Virginian delegates—who included famed names such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and George Mason, among others—were gathered on this March day in St. John’s Church to yet again rehash possible appeals to the crown, after having been barred from using their own House of Burgesses to convene. After hearing the stale proposals given by his fellow representatives, Henry rose and gave his own fiery rebuttal. In it he referenced both the long-suffering patience of the last decade spent in striving for peace, and the “phantom hope” of there being any honorable negotiation with a tyrant so obviously bent on subjecting his citizenry.

Henry was already renowned for his persuasive oratory skills

The exterior of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia, where Henry’s famous speech was made

Henry sympathized with chilling accuracy that “it is natural for men to indulge in illusions of hope” in the face of a strife that might exact from them an unimaginable price, but he pointed to their chains, those chains which were already forged: “their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come”. He cited with strong conviction the existence of “a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”

The interior of St. John’s Episcopal Church from an 1896 young people’s history book titled The Century Book of Famous Americans—the caption reads: “Patrick Henry made his famous speech standing in the pew on the left, near the door, marked by a tablet”

Henry’s speech is credited with galvanizing the Virginia delegation and leading to a resolution that committed Virginia troops to the Revolutionary War—not a moment too soon as Henry’s prophetic words came true in April of the same year with the “shot heard ’round the world”—the first militia engagements of the war at Lexington and Concord. According to G.K. Chesterton, “the real hero is not he who is bold enough to fulfill the predictions, but he who is bold enough to falsify them.” When the inevitable conflict escalated into all-out-war, Patrick Henry would go on to dutifully take the helm as wartime governor of Virginia, and lend his hand to the creation of its constitution.

A royal proclamation issued against Patrick Henry and others for their defiance against the Crown of England

This year we illuminate the 250th anniversary of the many precursors leading up to our nation’s Semiquincentennial that will be celebrated next year, not least of which was this great call to action by the Trumpet of our revolution. Let us praise God for His merciful raising up of men of great vision in our nation’s time of trial, and bold, sturdy men capable of seeing that vision through to fruition.

The grave of Patrick Henry and his second wife, Dorothea—Henry’s epitaph reads: “His fame his best epitaph”

Image Credits: 1 Bronze bust of Henry (wikipedia.org) 2 Henry speaking (wikipedia.org) 3 View of St. John’s from Henry’s pew box (wikipedia.org) 4 Orating (wikipedia.org) 5 Exterior of St. John’s (wikipedia.org) 6 Interior of St. John’s (wikipedia.org) 7 Royal Proclamation (wikipedia.org) 8 Henry’s Grave (wikipedia.org)

The Conversion of ‘Amazing Grace’ Writer John Newton, March 10, 1748

n his later years as the pastor at Olney church, John Newton said, “Let me not fail to praise that grace that could pardon such sins as mine”. A former slave trader and a cruel reprobate, the redeemed man who authored the beloved hymn, ‘Amazing Grace’, became an epitome of the principle Jesus taught us in Luke 7:47, that “those who have been forgiven much, love much”.

John Newton (1725-1807), memorialized in a stained glass window in the church he pastored: St. Peter and Paul Church, Olney, Buckinghamshire, England

Newton’s story is a familiar one for the time. After the death of his mother, he was sent to sea at age eleven, being apprenticed on one of his father’s ships. At sea Newton spent his young life in the isolated, vast and often cruel world of maritime trade. There, by his own admission, he learned and practiced every form of profane conduct. At eighteen he was unwillingly pressed into service in the Royal Navy and after attempting to desert, he was arrested, flogged, and relieved of his post. He was then transferred to a merchant vessel headed for Africa where his fortunes plummeted even further. Falling out with the trader who was transporting him, Newton became enslaved himself, becoming the tormented plaything of the trader’s African wife and as he himself wrote “a servant of slaves in Africa.”

A cutaway model of a 1700s slaving ship in the Middle Passage, much like what John Newton would have been aboard

Tensions aboard ships often ran high, with crowded conditions and unscrupulous sailors

He escaped this predicament by joining the crew of a slave ship where his physical condition improved but his conscience decayed yet more. Thus, barely twenty years of age, Newton was witness and perpetrator in man-stealing and the callous transportation of human souls from Africa across the ocean to English colonies in the Caribbean and North America. His family and friends back home were grieved by his behavior and his life—once dedicated to the principles of Christ in childhood—that was now given over to impulse and ambition. Newton later wrote:

Bringing a new load on board a slave ship

“The troubles and miseries . . . were my own. I brought them upon myself by forsaking [God’s] good and pleasant paths and choosing the way of transgressors which I found very hard; they led to slavery, contempt, famine and despair.”

Sketch of the layout of a French slave ship of Newton’s era, the Marie Séraphique

He became so depressed at such work that he thought to end his life, but the memory of his mother’s teachings and love for a sweetheart back home restrained him; he would later find such restraint a mercy intended to save his life for better work.

Leaving Africa on a work trip aboard a slave ship bound for the American colonies, Newton found a copy of Thomas à Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ and, to pass the time, began to read it with indifference until he was startled at the thought of, “What if these things should be true?” That was the evening of March 9, 1748. In the early dawn of the next morning on the 10th, a vicious gale struck his ship. Newton writes:

A 1441 edition of Thomas à Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, originally written in Latin

“I went to bed in my usual indifference, but was awakened by a violent sea which broke on us. Much of it came down below and filled the cabin where I lay. This alarm was followed by a cry that the ship was going down. We had immediate recourse to the pumps, but the water increased against all our efforts, Almost every passing wave broke over my head. I expected that every time the vessel descended into the sea, she would rise no more. I dreaded death now, and my heart foreboded the worst, if the Scriptures which, I had long since opposed, were true. . . I cried to the Lord for mercy but was instantly struck with what mercy can there be for me? The ship’s chief blasphemer, the loudest swearer, the man who mocked the Lord’s existence. What mercy can there be for me?”

An English ship is overcome by a storm

To the shock of this seasoned man of the sea, Newton’s vessel—or what remained of it—remained afloat. They landed in Ireland and there he went to the nearest church and “engaged to be the Lord’s forever, and only His.” As many Christians can attest, while the soul’s quickening may occur in a dramatic fashion, one’s return to Christ can be a slow and meandering process of trial and repentance. Newton’s was the same, for after this fateful saving of his life he began to read the New Testament, to pray and refrain from profanity, but continued on in his employment as a slave trader. He later wrote:

“How faint and wavering were my first returns to Thee! What a poor creature I am in myself, incapable of standing a single hour without continual fresh supplies of strength and grace from the fountain-head.”

The village of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England on the bank of the River Great Ouse, with the spire of St. Peter and Paul Church where Newton pastored

Newton would return home and go on to marry the love of his life, Mary Catlett, and together they grew in love for the word of God, a love that he said came to perpetually inflame his heart. It also brought him to despise his mode of employment, although most of the people in England—sheltered from witnessing its cruel mechanics—saw the slave trade as a very legitimate and rewarding business. Newton prayed for the Lord to provide a different path for him to support his family and the Lord answered, in a fashion as peculiar as it was irreversible. He suffered a stroke while waiting on the fitting of one of his ships for another voyage to Africa, and the complications from it led to his resigning from the trade for good.

A page from Olney Hymns—published in 1779—showing ‘Amazing Grace’

The church and churchyard of St. Peter and Paul Church, Olney, Buckinghamshire, England

Amidst the peace prescribed for a complete convalescence, Newton felt himself called to the vocation that had once been his heart’s greatest desire as a boy at his mother’s knee—to become a preacher of the good news of Christ and Christ crucified for sinners. Thus the reprobate became a pastor, and he who had once hunted flesh for sale became a seeker of souls for salvation. God blessed Newton with a growing congregation, talent for writing many religious works, friends such as William Cowper who aided him in the writing of hymns for their services, and a reach far beyond the little hamlet of Olney where he ministered.

William Cowper (1731-1800)—friend, parishioner, and fellow hymn-writer with Newton

The vicarage at Olney, where the Newton family lived

In 1780 John Newton was called to become minister at St. Mary Woolnoth in London. “London is the last situation I should have chosen for myself,” Newton said, yet he courageously took on his place there in one of the most debauched cities of its time. Here Newton was sought out by an old acquaintance: the very young, dazzlingly-gifted, freshly-minted Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce. Newton had been Wilberforce’s pastor back in Olney when he was a boy and now, as Newton had experienced himself, Wilberforce was enduring a torturously slow drawing near to Christ after having abandoned the faith in his teen years. “I trust God is with me,” Wilberforce wrote to Newton after they reconnected, “but He must ever keep beside me, for I fall the moment I am left to myself.”

William Wilberforce (1759-1833)

The exterior of St. Mary Woolnoth in London

The interior of St. Mary Woolnoth in London

Under Newton’s mentorship—one that lasted for the next twenty-two years, only ending with Newton’s death—Wilberforce became a born-again believer and in due time the slave trade’s greatest opponent. Together these two men, along with a devout cohort of admirable comrades, labored for decades to end not only the slave trade—for which they are so rightly remembered—but the moral decay of their fellow Englishmen. A truly Christian country, they argued, would not be so callous to the commands of Christ as to commit such atrocities as occurred every day on slave ships and in city slums. Their aim was not only the abolition of slavery but of godlessness in all its forms.

Newton in his older years as a minister

The official medallion of the British Anti-Slavery Society, designed by Josiah Wedgwood, 1795

John Newton was granted the grace to live long enough to see the year 1807, when William Wilberforce’s now almost ancient bill to end the slave trade was passed by a strong majority into English law. As of May 1807, the trade was made illegal throughout the British Empire and in December of the same year, Newton went to be with his Lord. When the College of New Jersey (Princeton) sent word that they had given Newton an honorary Doctor of Divinity for his religious work, he commented that “the dreary coast of Africa had been his university” and that he would never accept any diploma “except from the poor blacks.” Newton remained amazed until his last days at what God had done for him by chasing after him when he had wandered so far from what was right. He wrote,

“I can see no reason why the Lord singled me out for mercy . . . unless it was to show, by one astonishing instance, that with Him ‘nothing is impossible’.”

A scene at the port in Hull, Yorkshire, England (birthplace of William Wilberforce) where the Wilberforce monument dominates the landscape

In his sermons Newton was want to pause and utter, as if moved by sudden adoration, “Jesus Christ is precious.”

In his epitaph, Newton summed up his life in these words:

“John Newton, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.”

Tomb of John Newton and his wife, Mary, in the churchyard of his early pastorate, St. Peter and Paul Church, Olney, Buckinghamshire, England

Image Credits: 1 Stained glass memorial (wikipedia.org) 2 Cutaway model of a slaver (wikipedia.org) 3 Tensions in the hold (wikipedia.org) 4 Loading a ship (wikipedia.org) 5 Layout of a slaver (wikipedia.org) 6 The Imitation of Christ (wikipedia.org) 7 Shipwreck (wikipedia.org) 8 River and church, Olney (wikipedia.org) 9 ‘Amazing Grace’ (wikipedia.org) 10 Church of Sts. Mary and John (wikipedia.org) 11 William Cowper (wikipedia.org) 12 Olney vicarage (wikipedia.org) 13 William Wilberforce (wikipedia.org) 14 Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, exterior (wikipedia.org) 15 Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, interior (wikipedia.org) 16 Minister Newton (wikipedia.org) 17 Abolition medallion (wikipedia.org) 18 Wilberforce Monument (wikipedia.org) 19 Newton tomb (wikipedia.org)