And cold my warmest thought;

But when I see Thee as Thou art,

I’ll praise Thee as I ought.

Till then I would Thy love proclaim

With every fleeting breath;

And may the music of Thy Name

Refresh my soul in death.

John Newton, 1779.

A SLAVE-TRADER WHO WROTE CHRISTIAN LYRICS

In one of England’s famous old churches there is a tablet marking the last resting-place of one of its rectors, and on the tablet this epitaph: