John Newton and the Mercy He Could Not Outrun

John Newton spent his early years running hard in the wrong direction. By his twenties, he had worked aboard slave ships off the coast of West Africa, grown coarse with cruelty, and mocked the very idea of God. During a violent storm in March 1748, with the ship taking on water somewhere in the North Atlantic, Newton found himself doing something he hadn't done in years — praying.…