Onuniyan tehanl waun

Translator (into Lakota): Stephen W. Holmes

Stephen W. Holmes was a UCC Minister. Ordained 1970. Retired 2017. He is a known landscape artist. He and his wife Kathy lived in the Cheyenne River Reservation (Lakota) in S. Dakota where he translated Amazing Grace into the Lakota language. email sent to Hymnary Go to person page >

Author (St. 1-4): John Newton

John Newton (b. London, England, 1725; d. London, 1807) was born into a Christian home, but his godly mother died when he was seven, and he joined his father at sea when he was eleven. His licentious and tumul­tuous sailing life included a flogging for attempted desertion from the Royal Navy and captivity by a slave trader in West Africa. After his escape he himself became the captain of a slave ship. Several factors contributed to Newton's conversion: a near-drowning in 1748, the piety of his friend Mary Catlett, (whom he married in 1750), and his reading of Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ. In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and, in association with William Wilberforce, eventually became an ardent abolitionist. After becoming a tide… Go to person page >