How I made a difference.......

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

That sav’d a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.
’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears reliev’d;

How precious did that grace appear,

The hour I first believ’d!
Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares,

I have already come;

’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promis’d good to me,

His word my hope secures;

He will my shield and portion be,

As long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,

And mortal life shall cease;

I shall possess, within the veil,

A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,

The sun forbear to shine;

But God, who call’d me here below,

Will be forever mine.

John New­ton, Ol­ney Hymns (Lon­don: W. Ol­i­ver, 1779)

Since young, I heard this song in church, at farewell dinners, at funerals but it never occured to me what the origin of the song is. It was only yesterday when I watched Amazing Grace with Lady28 and Lady Charm, did I know how it came about and now, the song will take a new meaning whenever I hear it.

The composer, John Newton wrote this hymn after converting to Christianity in the village Kineton, Warwickshire, England. The hymn describes his feelings about the slave trade while on his ship in 1748. Several years later, he abandoned the slave trade and repented from his sins. Alas, the cruelty he witnessed was enough to scar him for life.

But the main show was not about John Newton, rather it was about his good friend William Wilberforce, a British politician, philanthropist, and abolitionist who led the parliamentary campaign against the slave trade in 1787. After months of planning, on 12 May 1789, he made his first major speech on the subject of abolition in the House of Common (S'pore's equivilent of Parliment), in which he reasoned that the slave trade was morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice.

But in those times, it was almost impossible to push for this cause because of power, money, racial discrimination....and that all men were not seen as equals..

What I'm amazed is that despite his ill-health, and the seemingly impossible task, he pushed on and never gave up to fight for a cause that involved a group of people from a different race, a different country... How many of us would do that?

His 20 years long battle to abolish the slave trade finally reached a closure in 25 March 1807. That was when the Slave Trade Act was finally abolished. And yet, he never stopped serving. He started doing many things to help the Africans and the British poor via medical institutes, schools etc.. and all these were done while his health was deteriortating. Amazingly, he lived up to the age of 74 and now he is buried in Westminster Abbey in London.

A statue to the memory of Wilberforce was erected in Westminster Abbey in 1840, bearing the epitaph:

"To the memory of William Wilberforce (born in Hull, August 24th 1759, died in London, July 29th 1833); for nearly half a century a member of the House of Commons, and, for six parliaments during that period, one of the two representatives for Yorkshire. In an age and country fertile in great and good men, he was among the foremost of those who fixed the character of their times; because to high and various talents, to warm benevolence, and to universal candour, he added the abiding eloquence of a Christian life. Eminent as he was in every department of public labour, and a leader in every work of charity, whether to relieve the temporal or the spiritual wants of his fellow-men, his name will ever be specially identified with those exertions which, by the blessing of God, removed from England the guilt of the African slave trade, and prepared the way for the abolition of slavery in every colony of the empire: in the prosecution of these objects he relied, not in vain, on God; but in the progress he was called to endure great obloquy and great opposition: he outlived, however, all enmity; and in the evening of his days, withdrew from public life and public observation to the bosom of his family. Yet he died not unnoticed or forgotten by his country: the Peers and Commons of England, with the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker at their head, in solemn procession from their respective houses, carried him to his fitting place among the mighty dead around, here to repose: till, through the merits of Jesus Christ, his only redeemer and saviour, (whom, in his life and in his writings he had desired to glorify,) he shall rise in the resurrection of the just."

One day, I'll pay my respects to this great man who fought a cause without the use of violence, who persisted despite all odds, who had an amazing grace to do what he strongly believed in, who made a difference in this world.......

Incidently, my padawans are taking part in this Readers' Digest essay competition on the topic:

HOW I MADE A DIFFERENCE...

It need not be something like what William Wilberforce did. It can be something simple and yet matters to someone, something or even themselves. I hope they will dig deep within themselves and really ask if they have a difference somehow... and if not, may they find the grace to do so someday......