Durward began by telling the class he and Tom Stinson are in process of taking contributions to acquire a set of Ben Witherington III's books for our church library. Since Ben, III's parents are members of our Sundy School class and he has been a speaker at our church and many other local churches, this is something he feels is important and appropriate. He needed $699 and has all but $149.10. Don Hammer added there is a new $18.95 book so that may up the total by $18.95. Barbara Barden had checked to see which books we already have in our library and which needed to be purchased to complete the set. Durward made a point of saying Don Redding had wanted the class to be offered a chance to make contributions to this effort.
Durward taught about the hymn, Amazing Grace, (published 1779 in Olney Hymns) and the class was, well......amazing. Most of the verses were written by John Newton but Stanza 6 in our hymnal is written by an anonymous person. There is also a seventh verse that we do not include in our hymnal. (I looked up the song on Wikipedia and it shows the following verse as part of the original 1779 publication but is not in our hymnal:
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.)
Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art have been the two most popular hymns throughout the years.
Again from Wikipedia, Charles Newton's father was a shipping merchant and he got his son a job on a ship as an apprentice. He was headstrong, disobedient, often sickly, and even more profane than other sailors of his day. He renounced the religion of his family until he had a conversion experience after spending time on a ship which nearly shipwrecked. Even after this experience, he took a job on a slave ship and made 3 voyages. He was then given the opportunity to move to a ship that did not deal in slaves but was too ill to take the job. Durward said he became a surveyor at this point. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1764 and began to write poems/hymns with William Cowper. They published Olney Hymns, named for the location where Newton was a curate. This book included Amazing Grace as one of its offerings.
The first time Amazing Grace was heard, it may have been chanted as no one knows what music it might have used. The hymnal showed only the words, not the music. Wikipedia says the song is associated with over 20 melodies but in 1835, it was set to the music of a song called New Britain, and this is the melody most used with the words today. The song is very popular and is used often in churches. Folk music also picked it up and, as well, it is known as an African American Spiritual. It is so popular due to its theme of God's forgiveness and mercy, a theme which came from Newton's feeling he had been redeemed by God from his life of profanity and disregard for others.
The 1960s and 1970s saw the song's words set to such music as House of the Rising Sun, an Eagles song, the "real thing" Coca-Cola ad, and many others. Durward had a singer on tape who demonstrated many of these versions. It was interesting to hear these versions and some of them were beautiful when using the words to Amazing Grace. Others took liberties beyond just setting the words to different music. The song and its title have been used numerous times by musicians on popular CDs, on tv, and in movies and there is now a movie titled, Amazing Grace.
Durward then shared his recently-authored "Upper Room" article which told about his miraculous experience with giving up smoking. He had tried many times without success and had suffered through several attempts. When his son joined the Methodist Church, he was asked by a Catholic friend what he was giving his son as a gift for the occasion. Durward told his friend it was not a tradition among Protestants to give gifts for this. However, when his son came to meet him, Durward handed him an almost-full pack of cigarettes and said he was stopping smoking as a gift to his son. He has never smoked again. Durward was overcome with emotion in the telling his story so his wife, Connie, came up and finished the story for him. She said they both consider this event as their personal miracle and gift from God.
A very touching class and one that we will remember for a long time. Thank you, Durward.
