Chapter 7 Below Deck

Chapter 7 Below Deck
An excerpt from Chapter 7 on the story of John Newton. (Gill, an English sailor, tells the Irish stowaway Joseph Moore, about his encounter with Newton years earlier.)

He stopped in mid-sentence. A look into Gill’s eyes revealed that this older man had been through his own struggles and personal hell.
Seizing the silence, Gill said, “Well, I been saving this man’s story for you. Let me tell you about him. I met him—oh, about fifty years ago in London. He was in his eighties and I was still a young man of twenty-five years old or so.
“Like me, this old man named Newton, had been a sailor for much of his earlier life. I’d heard about his story and made up my mind to meet him if I had a chance.
“That opportunity did arise in March of 1802. I saw in the papers where Newton was going to talk about the fifty-fourth anniversary of a seagoing experience that had changed his life.
“Newton was the son of an English sea captain. From his earliest years, he’d been aboard ships. From what I’d read, he’d been a pretty vile character in his younger days—most of it spent as a British Navy sailor and crew member aboard slave ships.
“So on this particular anniversary day, I traveled to London’s St. Mary’s Church to meet this old English sailor, John Newton.
“The church wasn’t huge, but on this particular Sunday, it was packed. Others had evidently come to hear his story just as I had.
“Newton, who was the pastor of this church, was very old and moved slowly as he ascended to the pulpit.
“I don’t remember everything he said that day, but I believe I recall every word of his story of going from a rough sailor to standing in the pulpit of this church. Do you mind if I tell you his story, best as I remember it?”
“Sure, I’d love to hear more. Go on.”
“Newton told how his dad was always gone on voyages for months, even years. When his mother, who was evidently a good and godly woman, died, young Newton, now age six, began accompanying his father on the ocean, mostly on slave-trading ships. He took to the seafaring life and learned all of the skills and knowledge required of sailors and captains. He also took to the evil living that often accompanies our profession. He described himself as a ‘terrible blasphemer and drunkard.
“According to Newton, when he was age twenty on a voyage, the crew threw him off near the western coast of Africa. That’s how bad he was—they just put him off on a seemingly deserted island to fend for himself and sailed away.
“He was taken in by a slave trader and treated as one of the slaves. He commented on how ironic that it was how that he had traded in slaves and now was like one of them himself.
“Newton spent about two years in terrible conditions on this coastal island. One day as he sat beside a fire on the beach, a passing ship sent a dinghy ashore to investigate the source of the smoke. The ship was an English one, and amazingly, the captain was a friend of John Newton’s father. So he was rescued from the island.
“About a year later on that same trip, the ship was swept up in a great Atlantic storm. Newton told how he awoke in his cabin to find water all around him. He quickly manned a pump, saying, ‘If this will not do it, the Lord have mercy upon us.’ He then spent the next nine hours frantically pumping water out of the hold.
“Then the Captain put him behind the wheel and for the next half day, Newton was alone in the storm fighting with all of his might to keep the ship afloat.
“He said that during those long hours at the wheel was when God touched his life. At the ship’s wheel, he had time to examine the bitter and hate-filled life he’d lived—plenty of time to realize that this storm was probably going end that same life.
“He realized that his earlier statement when manning the pumps was really the beginning of his turning to God. Finally, he cried out to God for mercy and grace and after more hours of peril, the storm ended. But what had happened in his life didn’t end… he was a changed man. He recorded the date in his logbook: March 21, 1748.”
Gill, who had Joseph’s complete attention, continued, “Son, the day I heard him preach and tell his story at the London church was March 21, 1802, fifty-four years to the day since his conversion in the storm.
“Joseph, do you know what John Newton is most famous for?”
“I guess, maybe, that story?”
“Well, that’s part of it. He’s famous because of the song he wrote after that story. It’s one of the best-loved hymns of our English churches and I’ll bet you’re familiar with it too. It’s called ‘Amazing Grace.’ Do you know it?”
Joseph said, “Amazing grace—how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me?”
“That’s it. Don’t it sound like a song written by a guy that had been to the bottom?”
To learn more about the amazing story of John Newton, click here.