AMAZING GRACE - Hymn Story

      On one occasion John Vassar, the great soul winner, was going from house to house distributing tracts and talking with people about their souls. One woman who heard about this strange man and what he was doing said: If he comes to my house, he will get the door slammed in his face.

       Without knowing that this woman had made such a statement, Mr. Vassar rang her doorbell the next day. When she saw that he was the man who had been described to her, she slammed the door in his face.

       John Vassar sat down on her doorstep and sang:

But drops of grief can ne’er repay

The debt of love I owe,

Here, Lord, I give myself away;

’Tis all that I can do.

       The woman heard the earnest verse as he sang and was convicted a sinner. She opened the door and called Mr. Vassar in, who led her to Jesus Christ.

—Covenant Weekly

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Amazing Grace!

 

(1) 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.

 

(2) 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears relieved:

How precious did that grace appear

The hour I first believed!

 

(3) The Lord has promised good to me,

His word my hope secures;

He will my shield and portion be

As long as life endures.

 

(4) Through many dangers, toils, and snares,

I have already come;

'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

 

(4) When we've been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We've no less days to sing God’s praise

Than when we'd first begun.

 

~Amazing Grace (2)

       John Newton, who penned the hymn Amazing Grace, also wrote these words:

       “By the grace of God I am what I am…I am not what I ought to be. How imperfect and deficient I am! I am not what I wish to be.”  And then added:

“Though I am not what I ought to be, I can truly say that I am not what I once was—a slave to sin and Satan. I can heartily say with Paul: ‘By the grace of God I am what I am’!”

 

~Amazing Grace (3)

       A 200-year-old American hymn tune, with words by a former English slave trader, played by, of all things, a Scottish bagpipe band, was the runaway hit record in Canada and Britain. “Amazing Grace,” performed by the regimental pipes and drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (a British cavalry regiment), was the number-one record in Britain and now tops charts in Canada. Sales in the United States were brisk.

       More than 100,000 copies of the 45 rpm single were sold in Canada within three weeks of release, and sales of the band’s long-play album total half that.  “Amazing,” says a distributing company official.