The Power of Grace, Newton

I just received the latest copy of the John Newton Project Prayer Letter, and it contained a few lines from Newton’s hymn “The Power of Grace.” I checked out cyberhymnal for the rest of the hymn but they don’t have it. I finally found it at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. I really appreciated the poem so here it is in its entirety.

The Power of Grace

Happy the birth where grace presides
To form the future life!
In wisdom’s paths the soul she guides,
Remote from noise and strife.

Since I have known the Savior’s name
And what for me he bore;
No more I toil for empty fame,
I thirst for gold no more.

Placed by his hand in this retreat,
I make his love my theme;
And see that all the world calls great,
Is but a waking dream.

Since he has ranked my worthless name
Amongst his favored few;
Let the mad world who scoff at them
Revile and hate me too.

O thou whose voice the dead can raise,
And soften hearts of stone,
And teach the dumb to sing thy praise,
This work is all thine own!

Thy wond’ring saints rejoice to see
A wretch, like me, restored
And point, and say, “How changed is he,
Who once defied the LORD!”

Grace bid me live, and taught my tongue
To aim at notes divine;
And grace accepts my feeble song,
The glory, LORD, be thine!


- John Newton, #60 in Olney Hymns