Today in 1748 was a date John Newton never forgot the rest of his life. He was active in the slave trade, but on this day, in a violent Atlantic storm, he prayed to God and became a Christian. Shockingly, he continued as a slave trader for several years, and it was only the influence of the early Methodists that persuaded him to become an abolitionist. He is seen above in a statue in Amazing Grace Park, County Donegal, in winter.
‘That 10th of March is a day much to be remembered by me; and I have never allowed it to pass unnoticed since the year 1748. For on that day the Lord came from on high and delivered me out of deep waters.’ John Newton
Francis Solanus, the Spanish saint, was born today in 1549. On a voyage to Latin America as a Franciscan missionary, his ship was wrecked on the coast of Peru. Francis’s fellow passengers and the crew abandoned ship, but he stayed onboard with the slaves, whom he had befriended during the voyage. A few days later, Francis and the slaves were saved.
Today in 1916, the music for the hymn ‘Jerusalem’ was written by Hubert Parry, the English composer. Composed at the height of the First World War, the song was intended to raise morale and support for the war in the face of rising casualties. According to the first conductor of the music, Parry was exceptionally pleased with his setting of William Blake’s poem: ‘We looked at it together in his room at the Royal College of Music, and I recall vividly his unwonted happiness over it.’
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green & pleasant Land.
William Blake, Preface to ‘Milton’
Johann Geiler von Kaisersberg, a celebrated and colourful Swiss preacher, died today in 1510. He was a friend of the author Sebastian Brant, and some of his most popular sermons, delivered in Strasbourg Cathedral, were based on Brant’s satirical book, Das Narrenschiff (known in English as The Ship of Fools). Like Brant, he attacked the corruption of the church. He was buried at the foot of the pulpit where he had given the sermons which made his name.
‘Once upon a time, a monk came to a cardinal at Rome. The cardinal, wishing to drive him away, said, “Whatever the world is doing, the monk wants to be next in line.” The monk replied, “No, Reverend Father. No! No!” The cardinal said, “Why not?” and the monk replied, “I don’t want to be next in line, but first in line.”‘ Johann Geiler von Kaisersberg, ‘Sermon on the Ants’
Image: Greg Clarke