Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.1UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.1UNLIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.61LIKELY
Sadness
0.57LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.58LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.26UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.9LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.47UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.2UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.72LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.58LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
THE STORY
I was born in 1725, and I died 1807.
The only godly
influence in my life, as far back as I can remember, was
my mother, whom I had for only seven years.
When she
left my life through death, I was virtually an orphan.
My father remarried, sent me to a strict military school,
where the severity of discipline almost broke my back.
I
couldn't stand it any longer, and I left in rebellion at age
of ten.
One year later, deciding that I would never enter
formal education again, I became a seaman apprentice,
hoping somehow to step into my father's trade and learn
at least the ability to skillfully navigate a ship.
And I
determined that I would sin to my fill without restraint,
now that the righteous lamp of my life had gone out.
I
did that all the days in the military service and I further
rebelled.
My spirit would not break, and I became increasingly more
and more a rebel.
Because of a number of things that I
disagreed with in the military, I finally deserted, only to
be captured like a common criminal and beaten publicly
several times.
After enduring the punishment, I again fled.
I entertained thoughts of suicide on my way to Africa.
I
decided on Africa, because it would be the place I could
get farthest from anyone that knew me.
And again I made
a pact with the devil to live for him.
Somehow, through a process of events, I got in touch with
a Portuguese slave trader, and I lived in his home.
His wife,
who was brimming with hostility, took a lot out on me.
She
beat me, and I ate like a dog on the floor of the home.
If I
refused to do that, she would whip me with a lash.
I fled penniless, owning only the clothes on my back, to the
shoreline of Africa where I built a fire, hoping to attract a
ship that was passing by.
The skipper thought that I had gold
or slaves or ivory to sell and was surprised that I was a skilled
navigator.
And it was there that I virtually lived for a long
period of time.
I went through all sorts of narrow escapes with death only a
hairbreadth away, on a number of occasions.
One time I opened
some crates of rum and got everybody on the crew drunk.
The
skipper, incensed with my actions, beat me, threw me down
below, and I lived on stale bread and sour vegetables for an
unendurable amount of time.
He brought me above to beat me
again, and I fell overboard.
Because I couldn't swim, he
harpooned me to get me back on the ship.
And I lived with the
scar in my side, big enough for me to put my fist into, until the
day of my death.
On board, I was inflamed with fever and
enraged with the humiliation.
A storm broke out, and I wound up again in the hold of the ship,
down among the pumps.
To keep the ship afloat, I worked as a
servant of the slaves.
There, bruised and confused, bleeding,
diseased, I was the epitome of the degenerate man.
I
remembered the words of my mother.
I cried out to God, the only way I knew, calling upon His grace
and His mercy to deliver me, and upon His son to save me.
The
only glimmer of light I could find was in a crack in the floor
above me, and I looked up to it and screamed for help.
God heard me.
Thirty-one years passed, I married a childhood sweetheart.
I
entered the ministry.
In every place that I served, rooms had
to be added to the building to handle the crowds that came to
hear the gospel that was presented and the story of God's
grace in my life.
My tombstone above my head reads, "Born 1725, died 1807.
A clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in
Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach
the faith he once long labored to destroy."
I decided before my death to put my life's story in verse.
And
that verse has become a hymn.
My name?
John Newton.
The hymn? "Amazing Grace
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9