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The former slave-trader turned Christian in a letter to his brother-in-law, the worldly John Catlett:
"If you were to send me an inventory of your pleasures, how charmingly your time runs on, and how dexterously it is divided between the coffee-houses, play-house, the card-table, and tavern, with intervals of balls, concerts, etc. I could answer that most of these I have tried and tried again, and know the utmost they can yield, and have seen enough of the rest most heartily to despise them all. Setting religion entirely out of the question, I profess I had rather be a worm to crawl upon the ground, than to bear the name of MAN upon the poor terms of whiling my life in an insipid round of such insignificant and unmanly trifles" (Letters of John Newton, 33-34).
I would have liked to have seen John Newton show up in a Jane Austen novel.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Don't Waste Your Life, John Newton Style
The former slave-trader turned Christian in a letter to his brother-in-law, the worldly John Catlett:
"If you were to send me an inventory of your pleasures, how charmingly your time runs on, and how dexterously it is divided between the coffee-houses, play-house, the card-table, and tavern, with intervals of balls, concerts, etc. I could answer that most of these I have tried and tried again, and know the utmost they can yield, and have seen enough of the rest most heartily to despise them all. Setting religion entirely out of the question, I profess I had rather be a worm to crawl upon the ground, than to bear the name of MAN upon the poor terms of whiling my life in an insipid round of such insignificant and unmanly trifles" (Letters of John Newton, 33-34).
I would have liked to have seen John Newton show up in a Jane Austen novel.
"If you were to send me an inventory of your pleasures, how charmingly your time runs on, and how dexterously it is divided between the coffee-houses, play-house, the card-table, and tavern, with intervals of balls, concerts, etc. I could answer that most of these I have tried and tried again, and know the utmost they can yield, and have seen enough of the rest most heartily to despise them all. Setting religion entirely out of the question, I profess I had rather be a worm to crawl upon the ground, than to bear the name of MAN upon the poor terms of whiling my life in an insipid round of such insignificant and unmanly trifles" (Letters of John Newton, 33-34).
I would have liked to have seen John Newton show up in a Jane Austen novel.
