" John Newton was one of the shining
lights and foremost leaders and preachers of the revival. His name was
great both in the Evangelical churches within the pale of the
Establishment, and in the Methodist churches without it. He was a
brand plucked from the very heart of the burning. We have a memoir of
his life, partly written by himself, in the form of letters, and
completed under his superintendence. It is a monument of the age of
Smollett and Wesley, not less characteristic than is Cellini's memoir
of the times in which he lived. His father was master of a vessel, and
took him to sea when he was eleven. His mother was a pious Dissenter,
who was at great pains to store his mind with religious thoughts and
pieces. She died when he was young, and his stepmother was not pious.
He began to drag his religious anchor, and at length, having read
Shaftesbury, left his theological moorings altogether, and drifted into
a wide sea of ungodliness, blasphemy, and recklessness of living. Such
at least is the picture drawn by the sinner saved of his own earlier
years.
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