It was a dark and stormy night. The name of the ship was The Greyhound, and Henry was aboard: a very bad man was
he. A drunkard and a carouser, a man with little common decency, little in the way of morals, and little in the way of
empathy for the well-being of his fellow man, Henry resided among the dregs of society, a vagabond among men, a
common degenerate. The hurricane force winds drove the seas to gigantic proportions, forcing the enormous waves to
crash against and over the sides of the ship, threatening to knock her out of the water or sink her in a moment.
The era of transatlantic shipping was at its peak, and the colonies in the New World had not yet waged a war for their
freedom, so unabated trade abounded in what has become known as the “Rum Triangle.” Heavily involved in this trade
was Henry, slave ship captain, and he was as ruthless as any that ever went before him or came after. Henry would as
soon toss an obstinate seaman overboard as he would the corpse of a dead slave, unfeeling, uncaring, unregarding.
But on the night in question, the stormy seas and threatening wind had put enough fear into Henry that during his return
trip to London, he gave grave consideration to his life and lifestyle. Until then Henry had been prone to profanity and
drinking, having lived an unregenerate life of lasciviousness and of general debauchery. His mother had died when he
was a baby, and after he became old enough he ran away to sea, only to find himself aligned with the worst of the scum
of the earth, those loathsome and putrid maggots of commerce, the slave traders who drove the economy of the day
with their despicable and disgraceful practice of trading in human flesh. Henry became one of them.
Even after making a confession to Christianity following his harrowing experience aboard The Greyhound, Henry
continued to engage in unbecoming conduct. But the experience had left him shaken, if not totally converted, from his
life of sin and degradation. In time Henry would find himself influenced to consider a different sort of life. In actuality it
was a stroke which felled the mighty Henry and brought him to his knees, upon which he cried out for God’ forgiveness,
and from which he found it, as do all who find themselves in such a lowly state of being.
And so Henry ended his days quite differently from how he had lived them. Whereas he had himself engaged in the
awful sin of the slave trade, Henry spent the final days of his life in the service of the cause of abolition.
So of what worth was the life of Henry? Surely he can receive penance for the few days he did spend trying to rectify
the evils he had bestowed upon others. Is it possible that all of the evils Henry had committed could be covered over in
our eyes when we learn that Henry had in the end turned to religion and himself become a member of the clergy? May
we not find forgiveness in our hearts for Henry, when we discover that for all the agony and distress he had caused
others, he had eventually found a way to disseminate peace and comfort to others, and he who had led others astray
had arrived at a place where he could influence for good those same others who had once lived as he had?
Surely one cannot condone a lifetime of sin and iniquity, such as we see in the wasted life of Henry, yet could we not find
some good for which we can bestow a manner of respect upon this wretch-turned-minister? Even in his day and
following his conversion there were those among his colleagues who considered Henry not worthy of respect or
consideration. For them Henry’s life had been too wasteful, too full of wretchedness. For those who could not find
forgiveness in their hearts, Henry’s crimes against his fellow man had been too heinous, too unspeakable, too
unpardonable. There may even be those among us today who would concur.
Henry: wicked, vile, wretch of a man; can a man of Henry’s ill repute leave a legacy that can in any way be considered
worthy of virtue? For all his carelessness and his wickedness and lack of empathy towards others, and considering the
enormous suffering he caused and the lives he ruined, is there any room in our hearts for forgiveness toward this once
proud sinner, this one time harbinger of death?
Yet, Henry did leave a legacy. In his waning years and in his stroke-damaged condition, Henry found time to reflect
upon his life, and upon reflection he managed to put his thoughts on paper. Henry even wrote a few verses of poetry,
some of which survive to this day. There is one such poem that Henry wrote and that managed to survive, which seems
to have captured what must surely have been the enormous guilt Henry felt for all the grief he had caused. And I would
venture to say that there is not a person among us who is not familiar with those words penned by Henry. As a matter of
fact, I would dare say there is not a person living in the western hemisphere today who could not recite at least the first
four lines of the words written by that one time wicked and vile, chief among sinners, John Henry Newton:
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me....
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.
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