" Amazing Grace " is a Christian hymn with words written by the English poet and clergyman John Newton ( 1725 – 1807 ), published in 1779.

Containing a message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, " Amazing Grace " is one of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking world.

In the United States however, " Amazing Grace " was used extensively during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century.

Author Gilbert Chase writes that " Amazing Grace " is " without a doubt the most famous of all the folk hymns ," and Jonathan Aitken, a Newton biographer, estimates that it is performed about 10 million times annually.

" Amazing Grace " saw a resurgence in popularity in the U. S. during the 1960s and has been recorded thousands of times during and since the 20th century, occasionally appearing on popular music charts.

According to the Dictionary of American Hymnology, " Amazing Grace " is John Newton's spiritual autobiography in verse.

The greatest influences in the 19th century that propelled " Amazing Grace " to spread across the U. S. and become a staple of religious services in many denominations and regions were the Second Great Awakening and the development of shape note singing communities.

" Amazing Grace " was one of many hymns that punctuated fervent sermons, although the contemporary style used a refrain, borrowed from other hymns, that employed simplicity and repetition such as:

William Walker ( composer ) | William Walker, the composer who first joined John Newton's verses to " New Britain ", to create the song that has become " Amazing Grace "

Common meter hymns were interchangeable with a variety of tunes ; more than twenty musical settings of " Amazing Grace " circulated with varying popularity until 1835 when William Walker assigned Newton's words to a traditional song named " New Britain ", which was itself an amalgamation of two melodies (" Gallaher " and " St. Mary ") first published in the Columbian Harmony by Charles H. Spilman and Benjamin Shaw ( Cincinnati, 1829 ).

" Amazing Grace ", with the words written by Newton and joined with " New Britain ", the melody most currently associated with it, appeared for the first time in Walker's shape note tunebook Southern Harmony in 1847.

" Amazing Grace " came to be an emblem of a religious movement and a symbol of the U. S. itself as the country was involved in a great political experiment, attempting to employ democracy as a means of government.

" Amazing Grace " set to " New Britain " was included in two hymnals distributed to soldiers and with death so real and imminent, religious services in the military became commonplace.

Although " Amazing Grace " set to " New Britain " was popular, other versions existed regionally.

Primitive Baptists in the Appalachian region often used " New Britain " with other hymns, and sometimes sing the words of " Amazing Grace " to other folk songs, including titles such as " In the Pines ", " Pisgah ", " Primrose ", and " Evan ", as all are able to be sung in common meter, of which the majority of their repertoire consists.

Moody and Sankey began publishing their compositions in 1875, and " Amazing Grace " appeared three times with three different melodies, but they were the first to give it its title ; hymns were typically published using the first line of the lyrics, or the name of the tune such as " New Britain ".

A publisher named Edwin Othello Excell gave the version of " Amazing Grace " set to " New Britain " immense popularity by publishing it in a series of hymnals that were used in urban churches.

Several editions featuring Newton's first three stanzas and the verse previously included by Harriet Beecher Stowe in Uncle Tom's Cabin were published by Excell between 1900 and 1910, and his version of " Amazing Grace " became the standard form of the song in American churches.

With the advent of recorded music and radio, " Amazing Grace " began to cross over from primarily a gospel standard to secular audiences.

The ability to record combined with the marketing of records to specific audiences allowed " Amazing Grace " to take on thousands of different forms in the 20th century.

Where Edwin Othello Excell sought to make the singing of " Amazing Grace " uniform throughout thousands of churches, records allowed artists to improvise with the words and music specific to each audience.

" Amazing Grace " is emblematic of several kinds of folk music styles, often used as the standard example to illustrate such musical techniques as lining out and call and response, that have been practiced in both black and white folk music.

Mahalia Jackson employed " Amazing Grace " for Civil Rights marchers, writing that she used it " to give magical protection — a charm to ward off danger, an incantation to the angels of heaven to descend ...

" Folk singer Judy Collins, who knew the song before she could remember learning it, witnessed Fannie Lou Hamer leading marchers in Mississippi in 1964, singing " Amazing Grace ".

Collins decided to record it in the late 1960s amid an atmosphere of counterculture introspection ; she was part of an encounter group that ended a contentious meeting by singing " Amazing Grace " as it was the only song to which all the members knew the words.

There was nothing left to do, I thought ... but sing ' Amazing Grace '.

The science-fiction editor Gardner Dozois is generally acknowledged as the person who popularized the use of the term " cyberpunk " as a kind of literature, although Minnesota writer Bruce Bethke coined the term in 1980 for his short story " Cyberpunk ," which was published in the November 1983 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories.

Jeron Criswell King ( August 18, 1907 – October 4, 1982 ), born Jeron Criswell Konig, and known by his stage-name The Amazing Criswell (), was an American psychic known for wildly inaccurate predictions.

This was later released as Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega using the Amazing Engine Rules.

He was the author of many hymns, including " Amazing Grace " and " Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken.

Randi began his career as a magician named The Amazing Randi, but after retiring at age 60, he was able to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, which he collectively calls " woo-woo ".

For example, Spider-Man's high school graduation was published in Amazing Spider-Man # 28 ( September 1965 ), his college graduation in Amazing Spider-Man # 185 ( October 1978 ), and his high school reunion in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man # 7 ( December 2004 ).

' Amazing Grace ' was not the original title of this hymn: it was originally written as a poem entitled ' Faith's Review and Expectation ' and appears in Book I of the Olney Hymns with the poem's title and ' hymn 41 '.

The 1928 publication of Philip Nolan's original Buck Rogers story, Armageddon 2419, in Amazing Stories was a landmark event.

In 2007, Gellar was featured in Vaseline's " Skin Is Amazing " campaign, with other actors such as Hilary Duff, Amanda Bynes, and John Leguizamo.

* Episode 2 of the first season of The Amazing Race was not aired on the evening of September 12 as scheduled.

* The Savage Land was referenced in the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode " The Hunter and the Hunted.

In early 1963, with the success of Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy, The Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor, Iron Man, and The Fantastic Four, creator Stan Lee devised the series title after Marvel publisher Martin Goodman turned down the initial name, " The Mutants ", stating that readers would not know what a " mutant " was.

Reality shows with low ratings included The Amazing Race, Lost ( unrelated to the better-known serial drama of the same name ) and The Mole, leading some to speculate that reality television was a temporary fad that had run its course.

These longer strips include The Bash Street Kids Adventures written and drawn by Kev F Sutherland which since 2004 have featured parodies of famous comic strip images, including Amazing Fantasy's first Spider-Man cover, Action Comics ' first Superman cover, and most recently the cover of X Men # 100.

* St John's Hoxton – Anglican church ( where " Amazing Grace " was written )

In 2001, an IMAX film was released, entitled Journey into Amazing Caves, which featured two new songs written and performed by the Moody Blues.

His work as a songwriter met with particular success in the UK: top 40 UK hits written by Newman included Cilla Black's " I've Been Wrong Before " (# 17, 1965 ), Gene Pitney's " Nobody Needs Your Love " (# 2, 1966 ) and " Just One Smile " (# 8, 1966 ); and The Alan Price Set's " Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear " (# 4, 1967 ).

He also wrote ' aaa ' - the Amazing Awk Assembler which is one of the longest and most complex programs ever written in the awk programming language.

She portrayed Aunt May in the Marvel Comics film The Amazing Spider-Man ( 2012 ), and will play Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's upcoming film Lincoln, written by Tony Kushner.

An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life, published in 1998, is a motivational book by Spencer Johnson written in the style of a parable or business fable.

Spider-Man comics feature a villain named Hobgoblin, an imitation of the Green Goblin, first appearing in Amazing Spider-Man # 238 written by Roger Stern.

In an attempt to fill that gap, Marvel published three flashback Spider-Man stories in Amazing Fantasy # 16 – 18 ( Dec. 1995-March 1996 ), each written by Kurt Busiek and painted chiefly by Paul Lee.

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz: A Faithful Record of Their Amazing Adventures in an Underground World ; and How with the Aid of Their Friends Zeb Hugson, Eureka the Kitten, and Jim the Cab-Horse, They Finally Reached the Wonderful Land of Oz is the fourth book set in the Land of Oz written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by John R. Neill.

In Amazing Adventures # 11, written by Gerry Conway in March 1972, the Beast underwent a radical change in appearance, mutating into the now familiar furry creature.

Fate was co-founded in 1948 by Raymond A. Palmer ( editor of Amazing Stories ) and Curtis Fuller, suspended print publication in July 2009, and launched a new website in January 2010 featuring news, articles, and blogs written by experts and paranormal researchers.

Marvel's next Amazing Adventures was a split title featuring the Inhumans ( initially both written and drawn by Jack Kirby, later drawn by Neal Adams ) and the Black Widow ( initially by writer Gary Friedrich and penciler John Buscema ).

The novel's publication was followed by several companion projects, including two short stories published by Chabon that consist of material apparently written for the novel but not included: " The Return of the Amazing Cavalieri " in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern ( 2001 ), and " Breakfast in the Wreck " in The Virginia Quarterly Review ( 2004 ).

Cole's story concludes in " Space, Time & the Incurable Romantic ", a short story written by JMS and published in Amazing Stories # 602.

Following the events of " Caged Angels ", the various Thunderbolt specials ( written by Christos Gage ), and the Penance limited series, and guest appearances in Moon Knight and The Amazing Spider-Man, the group is thrust into the events of " Secret Invasion ", when Thunderbolt Mountain is attacked by the Skrull Khn ' nr, also known as Skrull sleeper agent Captain Marvel, just as Arnim Zola drops off the newly resurrected ( via cloning technology ) Andrea Strucker.

He has also written two books of art and short stories, Wish For Something Better and Amazing Rain, based on the art of his website.

Paulette has also written dozens of non fiction books for children including the Amazing series, the In My Neighbourhood series, The Sun, and The Moon.

The story was written to mark the twentieth anniversary of Asimov's first published story, " Marooned Off Vesta ", in the March 1939 issue of Amazing.

In August 1983, DeFalco wrote the first four issues of the third series of Red Sonja ( after an aborted second series of just two issues earlier in the year written by Roy Thomas ) and after shedding his Spider-Man editorial duties ( largely to Danny Fingeroth ) he took over from Roger Stern as writer of The Amazing Spider-Man.

Morbius debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man # 101 ( Oct. 1971 ), the first issue of Marvel Comics ' flagship Spider-Man series written by someone other than character co-creator and editor-in-chief Stan Lee.