NEWTON, Joirx, 1725-1807; b. London; son of a sea-captain ; devoted by his mother to the Christian ministry. But her death occurring when he was seven years of age, he was neglected by his father and step-mother, and soon learned the ways of vicious boys with whom he associated. After a little time at a boarding-sehool in Essex, he went to sea at the age of eleven. During the next six years he was exposed to the influence of atheistical books and companions. Pending Shaftesbury's Character istics he became an infidel. In his 19th year lie was nuexpectedly promoted to the rank of a midshipman on board the Haver man-of-war. Hat in his self-will he abandoned the ship while she lay at Plymouth. Ile was caught, brought back, flogged, and degraded; but became only more hardened. In 1745 he set sail for India as a common sailO•. Unable to endure the taunts of his messmates and the frowns of his superiors. he entered at Madeira a Guinea vessel which took him in exchange for another. In six months he left this ship and landed penniless on the African coast near Sierra Leone. 1 fe soon found employment iu the service of a slave-trader in one of the islands of the Plantanes, and was compelled to perform the most groveling drudgery. In a year ihe "stout English sailor was transformed into a spiritless, half-naked wretch, suffering under the effects of fever, shivering under the wind and wet of the rainy season, devour lug the nauseous roots which he stole by night from the plantations, or the fish which he caught by the sea-shore, and exciting the contempt and even the pity of the meanest of the slaves." In 1747 an English captain arriving at Sierra Leone with orders from his father to bring him home found him "herding contentedly with the negroes in their low pleasures and gross superstitions." He sailed in Mar., 1748. The ship came near foundering in a terrible storm. Ilis mind was awakened to serious thoughts. At the mar prospect of death his skeptical indifference and blasphemous defiance deserted him. He prayed, he read the New Testament and Thomas-a-Kempis, and when the ship reached Ireland he was a changed man. In 1750 he married :Mary Catlett. Soon after wards he was appointed commander of an African slaver, and for four years con tinued in the slave trade, confessing that "he never had the least scruples as to its lawfulness," though afterwards he labored earnestly to expose its cruelties During the intervals between his voyages while on shore, and on deck at sea, he studied Horace, Livy, and Erasmus. In 1754 a sudden attack of sickness led him.
to abandon a sea-faring life, and for 8 years he was tide-surveyor at Liverpool. At this Vine he studied Greek and Hebrew, and the best theological works in Latin, French, and English. In 1704 he was ordained, and appointed curate of the parish of Olney, where he remained 16 years. He entered heartily into the religious views and work of Wesley and Whitetield. At Olney he published An Authentic iNarrative of some Remarkable and Interesting Particulars in the Life of the Rev. John ]Teuton. Here too he formed an intimate friendship with Cowper, and in connection wills him produced the Olney Hymns. Most of them were written by himself for the use of his congregation. In 1779 he was presented with the rectory of the united parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St.. Mary Woolchureh Han, London, where Ile remained till his death, continuing to preach three times a week, even when more than four-score years old, and sight, hearing and memory were fast failing. When entreated to stop, he exclaimed, "Windt shall the old African blasphemer stop while he can speak?" His labors were very effective, and he contributed much to dispel the religious apathy of that age. His works besides Olney Hymns, were Omicroris Letters; Review of History; Cardiphania, or Utter awes of the Heart; The Christian Character Exemplified; Letters to a Wife; Messiah, being 50 discourses on the Scripture passages in the oratorio of the " Messiah ;" Letters to the Rev. Willicant Bull, and numerous sermons, discourses, tracts, etc. His letters are beautiful spscimens of clearness and simplicity, and rich in Christian experience. Though in his preface to the Olney IlYmns he disclaims all pretension to being a poet, and claims only the "mediocrity of talent which might qualify him for usefulness to the.weak and poor of his flock," yet his verses, being as he himself says, "the fruit and expression of his own experience," live in the memory and 'affection of Christians, and some find a place in our best collections of hymns. He was a leader in the evangelical party in the church of England.