Christianity from the 43 bus: 13. John Newton

Continuing a journey through London on the 43 bus route - with a Christian eye.  The whole series is viewable on the '43 bus route' tag below.

Although the 43 bus route has often been changed over the years, and is due to change again shortly, conveniently for my blog it heads down Moorgate into the City of London, passing the west side of the Bank of England.  There it enters King William Street.

There on the first corner it comes to another candidate for the ugliest church in London (see THIS EARLIER BLOG), this time St Mary Woolnoth.   It is one of the almost unimaginable number of Church of England churches serving the City of London (and its population of less than 9000).

What sets St Mary Woolnoth apart is one of its former incumbents, John Newton.  Though famed as the sea captain of slaving ships who was dramatically converted and became vicar of Olney in Buckinghamshire, Newton was latterly the minister of St Mary Woolnoth.  He was famed in his day, and history has given him - and his hymn Amazing Grace, more fame still.

Wisely, perhaps, he chose to write his own epitaph, which to this day is on the church wall inside:

John Newton, 

clerk, 

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 laboured to destroy.