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# Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery

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This biography of England’s heroic abolitionist commemorates the 200th anniversary of the ending of slavery in the United Kingdom William Wilberforce (1759–1833) has been hailed as a one of society’s great reformers. His great goal was the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery in England, and in Amazing Grace , the true story of his remarkable life and meaningful accomplishments leap off the page. Beginning with Wilberforce’s religious conversion in 1784 that led him to a life of activism grounded in his deep Christian faith, this compelling historical biography chronicles his extraordinary contributions to the world, primarily his 20-year fight to abolish the British slave trade, a battle he won in 1807. He was also instrumental in passing legislation to abolish slavery in the British colonies, a victory achieved just three days before his death in 1833. Wilberforce was a hero to Abraham Lincoln and an inspiration to the anti-slavery movement in America, and the account of his fight for social justice in Amazing Grace will help many more become reacquainted with this exceptional man. Discover the story of the man Abraham Lincoln called a hero: Abolitionist Crusade: Follow Wilberforce’s two-decade-long battle to abolish the British slave trade, a fight he finally won in 1807. Faith and Politics: Explore how his profound religious conversion in 1784 reshaped his political career, turning him from an ambitious politician into one of history’s greatest social reformers. A Legacy of Freedom: Learn about the final legislative victory won just three days before his death and how his tireless work became an inspiration for the anti-slavery movement in America. The Clapham Circle: Go inside the influential community of like-minded reformers who met to strategize, pray, and plot the course for social change in the British Empire.

Review: Is this the best book ever, next to the Bible? - I didn’t think it would ever happen. But just three short years after falling in love with the Adoniram Judson biography To the Golden Shore, another book is threatening to overtake my heart’s literary #1 spot. That book is Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery by Eric Metaxas (Harper One, 2007). It’s the story of the horrific African slave trade, and the institution of slavery throughout the British empire, and one man’s epic 20+-year battle to abolish both. Over the years, I had read and heard a great deal about slavery, starting with the enslavement of the children of Israel by the ancient Egyptians, as described in the Bible’s book of Exodus. And of course you can hardly grow up in America without hearing many accounts of the institution’s abominations in the South. But earlier this year, I learned a great deal more from Jonathan Aitken’s stunning biography John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace (Crossway, 2007). Then, to further my education, Maranatha Baptist University’s Dr. David Saxon and his wife Jamie recommended that I read this Wilberforce biography. After sketching out the content of the book for me, Jamie Saxon added an irresistible incentive: “You’ll love his writing.” And indeed, my review of this book really has to start with a mention of the extraordinary writing of Eric Metaxas. I always mark up my books, but normally only to highlight important facts. Not this time: At least half of my mark-ups are to call attention to particularly elegant language, or especially poignant observations, or even the author’s wonderful sense of humor (amazingly, there’s plenty to laugh about even in this dead-serious book about the abolition of slavery – more proof of Metaxas’s unique gift, I suppose). You’ll find just a few examples of his skill in the excerpts below. So, in a nutshell, William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was a brilliant and wealthy British politician and Member of Parliament who spent the first years of his career as a party animal; became a born-again Christian in his mid-20s; and eventually, having heard about the ghastly ways that African slaves were treated during and after their transport to the New World, embraced the cause of abolition. Metaxas’s account of Wilberforce’s conversion to Christ is alone worth the price of the book. What Wilberforce would later call his “Great Change” didn’t happen overnight. But it seems that a key event in this process was a horse-drawn chaise trip he and his equally brilliant friend Isaac Milner took from Nice to Calais, over 1200 miles of winding, unpaved roads in heavy snowfall. To occupy themselves, they read and discussed Philip Doddridge’s 1745 book The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. Write Metaxas of this journey: “The extraordinary felicity of this scene, of these incandescent minds meeting on this subject of eternal things, sailing in their horse-drawn coach through the mountains, seems like something out of a fairytale, one in which a gnome and a giant on a journey in a sphere of glass and silver discover the Well at the World’s End, and drinking a draught therefrom learn the secret meaning at the heart of the universe.” (pp. 47-48) It was this journey that apparently changed Wilberforce’s heart once and for all: “Anyone who had been privy to his thoughts at this time would have wondered what had happened to the gay, carefree fellow of just a few months before -- the one … who had thought nothing of shaving the truth here and there during his speech in the castle yard at York to ‘tear the enemy to pieces’ and elevate himself to the highest parliamentary place in the land; who ate and drank and danced and sang till the wee hours of hundreds of mornings. Where had that fellow gone?” (p 49) It’s uncertain exactly how this new creature in Christ first came to make the abolition movement his life’s work. Ex-slave-trader, beloved pastor and “Amazing Grace” author John Newton was a family friend, and no doubt his conversation had something to do with it. And along the way, Wilberforce also befriended a number of other folks who would play key roles in his campaign. It’s possible that Wilberforce’s attention was first arrested by the accounts he heard and read of “the Middle Passage” – the second leg of slave ships’ trip from England to Africa, Africa to the New World, and then home to England again. It was in Africa that the English traders kidnapped men, women and children, often with the help of local chieftains, and packed them into ships without regard to their health or comfort. The conditions were unimaginably awful: overcrowding so excessive that in some cases the captives were piled on top of each other; no fresh air; suffocating heat; and relentless stench. Many died outright during the ensuing weeks, before being unloaded on the other side of the Atlantic. And in at least one case known as the Zong Incident, 131 sick and even relatively healthy slaves were simply tossed overboard into the ocean to drown or be devoured by sharks. The reason: the captain would be rewarded for his work by the value of his cargo at auction, and sick slaves didn’t fetch much; but dead slaves were covered in full by insurance. Metaxas quotes extensively from some of the first-person accounts of the atrocities. I won’t repeat any of them here. I can’t. You must read them yourself. Try not to weep. But it must have been such accounts that transformed Wilberforce and his companions into passionate enemies of slavery. And thanks in part to their zealous efforts to capture the hearts of British citizens, the abolition movement gained strength throughout England in the last quarter of the 18th century. It’s important to recognize the spiritual nature of this movement. As the author notes, “The acutely Christian character of the British abolitionist movement is undeniable, for its leaders were all consciously acting out of the principles of their deeply held faith.” (p 96) Yet some of abolition’s enemies claimed to be Christians, too. Metaxas comments: “For this the leaders of the Church of England, not merely the people in its pews, were to blame. The Church of England at the time had a great deal of money invested in West Indian plantations and did not make any connection between the tenets of the Christian faith and abolition. Making that connection fell to outsiders – to the Methodists and other so-called Dissenters, such as the Quakers and Moravians.” (p 96) (An aside: the author’s discussions of England’s “retreat from serious Christian faith” in the 18th century is one of the fascinating subplots in this book.) At any rate, Wilberforce became convinced that he must to lead the charge against the slave trade in Parliament. For “if, as [he] thought, God Himself was calling him to this task and he shrank from it, God too could find another to do it, and surely would.” It was a highly complicated, heart-wrenching and endlessly frustrating era for Wilberforce, and it involved domestic and international political machinations that would surprise even the careful observer of 21st century American politics. It consumed him for over two decades, robbing him of his peace and his health as he approached Parliamentary victory again and again, only to suffer defeat after debilitating defeat. Wilberforce received a great deal of encouragement along the way, however. For example, in perhaps the last letter he ever penned, just a few days before his death, John Wesley wrote to Wilberforce. He said, in part, “…if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.” Metaxas’s comment on this letter: “What an encouragement it must have been to read these words from the battle-scarred veteran, who had fought the good fight, and run with patience the race, and had kept the faith … And so William Wilberforce now ran, cheered on by a great and growing cloud of witnesses.” (p 145) Wesley’s last epistle arrived in February, 1791. It would be almost exactly 16 years later, in 1807, that the battle would finally be won, with abolition secured in Parliament by a resounding vote of 283-16. Throughout the painfully long proceedings, Metaxas reports, Wilberforce “had sat composed, quite composed.” But when the final vote was tallied, and the rejoicing began, “he was overcome, and taking his head in his hands, he wept.” (p 210) As we watch the celebration unfold, the reader rejoices with the author, and very belatedly, with all those who made this victory possible. It was over! Surely the work was only beginning, but the strongest enemy had been defeated! Hallelujah! But wait: “Let’s not run ahead just yet,” Metaxas says. “Let’s behold [Wilberforce] here for a little while longer, here in this Moment of moments, a man allowed that highest and rarest privilege, to be awake inside his own dream. Seated there, head in his hands, humbled and exalted in his humility, we have the apotheosis of William Wilberforce.” (p 211) And there’s more. Oh, so much more! But my review is already way too long. You simply must read this book. Don’t delay. Read To the Golden Shore, too, and then you can decide for yourself which one is more life-changing. In the meantime, I have to run and order another book by Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer, perhaps, or maybe Martin Luther ...
Review: An Excellent Biography - That the name of William Wilberforce has largely been lost to history seems somehow unfair. Wilberforce was the driving force behind the abolition of slavery within the British Empire. A Member of Parliament for forty-five years, the results of his efforts are still seen and understood in Western society to this day. Though his impact was felt not only at his time, but has extended through history, few people know his name. In Amazing Grace, Eric Metaxas' new biography of Wilberforce, which was timed to coincide with the release of a film by the same title (which was, in turn, timed to coincide with the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade) he makes the valid comparison to a scientist who discovers the cure for an inoculation against a terrible disease. As the disease is eradicated and passes out of memory, so the scientist's name is likely to be forgotten. And this is what seems to have happened to Wilberforce. We live in a day where slavery is unthinkable and we can hardly conceive of a time when the best and brightest of society defended it and thought little of pillaging the African continent for their own gain. Though those of us who remember Wilberforce know him primarily as the leader of the fight to abolish the slave trade, the truth is that he fought to great battles, the first against slavery and the second for the reformation of manners (which is to say a kind of social reform against rampant immorality and vice). While this biography focuses primarily on the first of these battles, the second does receive some attention as well. Life in Wilberforce's day was brutal, decadent, violent and vulgar. Societal evils were many and horrific: "epidemic alcoholism, child prostitution, child labor, frequent public executions for petty crimes, public dissections and burnings of executed criminals, and unspeakable public cruelty to animals." All of these were far more visible than slavery. Wilberforce knew that, if society was to be brought into line with the commandments of God, it would need to begin with the reformation of manners and he spent much of his life attempting to ban what was vulgar and unbiblical and to promote what was beautiful and Scriptural, knowing that success in the small things would eventually lead to success in greater things. Wilberforce has rightly been credited with giving the West its social conscience. Having read this biography, there are at least three great lessons I have drawn from the life of this great Christian. First, I have seen the value of persistence. Wilberforce fought for years and years before seeing any measurable success in his battle to outlaw the slave trade. Had he not persisted, it may have taken many more years and hundreds of thousands of lives for the trade to be abolished. Second, I have seen that there is hope even more the most evil of the many evils in our society. There was a time when very few could have imagined that slavery would ever be banned and yet, in one lifetime, attitudes were changed so that today slavery is almost unimaginable. As we think about the evils that plague contemporary society we can have hope that minds, hearts and attitudes can change. Third, I have seen the value of incremental change for Wilberforce was willing to accept incremental improvements. At one point he supported a bill, passed on a trial basis, that would regulate the number of slaves that were permitted to be transported on a single ship. Previously slaves had been laid in rows on benches, chained on their sides with the front of one pressed against the back of the next. Following the legislation, improvements were made. Though the bill implicitly and explicitly supported the continuance of slavery, Wilberforce saw it as a step in the right direction and was willing to support it. Another time he voted for a bill that required plantation owners to register all of their slaves. While this bill also supported slavery, Wilberforce saw that a registry of slaves would keep plantation owners from adding to their number of slaves by buying them from illegal slave smugglers. Incremental changes may lead to greater and more profound changes. Some who have read the book have made note of the author's occasional use of sophomoric humor. Though there are several examples, perhaps the most blatant falls outside of the flow of the book's text in the Acknowledgments. "I wish first and foremost to thank my typist, yours truly, for quite literally transcribing my thoughts as I thought them, a feat hardly to be explained, and yet quite literally true." I suppose some find this kind of humor to be funny but in a serious biography it seems a little out of place. Other examples are less obvious and are perhaps more clever than obnoxious: "Wilberforce may have been crazy like a fox, but Fox himself was so often drunk as the proverbial skunk that Wilberforce wisely decided to forego badgering him about becoming involved. Even if Fox had initially assented to lend his name to the cause, it seems rather likely that he may have eventually weaseled out of any real commitment anyway, and it is always possible that, given his affection for dissolute living, he may even have become a mole for the opposition." If you missed the humor in that paragraph, read it again and you should catch it. Though the author's expression can seem a trifle obnoxious at times, this is true more in the early pages than in the majority of the text. The reader who presses on will be richly rewarded, not only with great content but even with some excellent prose, a brief example of which I will provide here. "And thus, history: three men, each named William, each twenty-seven years old, talking at the base of an ancient oak tree on a hill in May: one prime minister, one prime-minister-to-be, and one who would stand from that moment forward at the center of something so big and beyond any single man that a tree whose life had begun several centuries earlier, and would continue for nearly two more, was the humble creature chosen to bear mute witness to the conversation." Despite its few problems, and though this may not be among the greatest biographies ever written, it is certainly a good one and is a worthy addition to any library, personal, church or public. It wonderfully describes and analyzes the life of a great Christian man who can and should serve as an inspiration even today. I enjoyed it thoroughly and commend it to you.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #181,441 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #19 in Religious Leadership (Books) #24 in Historical British Biographies #27 in Christian Leadership (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.8 out of 5 stars 2,405 Reviews |

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Is this the best book ever, next to the Bible?
*by C***H on September 3, 2021*

I didn’t think it would ever happen. But just three short years after falling in love with the Adoniram Judson biography To the Golden Shore, another book is threatening to overtake my heart’s literary #1 spot. That book is Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery by Eric Metaxas (Harper One, 2007). It’s the story of the horrific African slave trade, and the institution of slavery throughout the British empire, and one man’s epic 20+-year battle to abolish both. Over the years, I had read and heard a great deal about slavery, starting with the enslavement of the children of Israel by the ancient Egyptians, as described in the Bible’s book of Exodus. And of course you can hardly grow up in America without hearing many accounts of the institution’s abominations in the South. But earlier this year, I learned a great deal more from Jonathan Aitken’s stunning biography John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace (Crossway, 2007). Then, to further my education, Maranatha Baptist University’s Dr. David Saxon and his wife Jamie recommended that I read this Wilberforce biography. After sketching out the content of the book for me, Jamie Saxon added an irresistible incentive: “You’ll love his writing.” And indeed, my review of this book really has to start with a mention of the extraordinary writing of Eric Metaxas. I always mark up my books, but normally only to highlight important facts. Not this time: At least half of my mark-ups are to call attention to particularly elegant language, or especially poignant observations, or even the author’s wonderful sense of humor (amazingly, there’s plenty to laugh about even in this dead-serious book about the abolition of slavery – more proof of Metaxas’s unique gift, I suppose). You’ll find just a few examples of his skill in the excerpts below. So, in a nutshell, William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was a brilliant and wealthy British politician and Member of Parliament who spent the first years of his career as a party animal; became a born-again Christian in his mid-20s; and eventually, having heard about the ghastly ways that African slaves were treated during and after their transport to the New World, embraced the cause of abolition. Metaxas’s account of Wilberforce’s conversion to Christ is alone worth the price of the book. What Wilberforce would later call his “Great Change” didn’t happen overnight. But it seems that a key event in this process was a horse-drawn chaise trip he and his equally brilliant friend Isaac Milner took from Nice to Calais, over 1200 miles of winding, unpaved roads in heavy snowfall. To occupy themselves, they read and discussed Philip Doddridge’s 1745 book The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. Write Metaxas of this journey: “The extraordinary felicity of this scene, of these incandescent minds meeting on this subject of eternal things, sailing in their horse-drawn coach through the mountains, seems like something out of a fairytale, one in which a gnome and a giant on a journey in a sphere of glass and silver discover the Well at the World’s End, and drinking a draught therefrom learn the secret meaning at the heart of the universe.” (pp. 47-48) It was this journey that apparently changed Wilberforce’s heart once and for all: “Anyone who had been privy to his thoughts at this time would have wondered what had happened to the gay, carefree fellow of just a few months before -- the one … who had thought nothing of shaving the truth here and there during his speech in the castle yard at York to ‘tear the enemy to pieces’ and elevate himself to the highest parliamentary place in the land; who ate and drank and danced and sang till the wee hours of hundreds of mornings. Where had that fellow gone?” (p 49) It’s uncertain exactly how this new creature in Christ first came to make the abolition movement his life’s work. Ex-slave-trader, beloved pastor and “Amazing Grace” author John Newton was a family friend, and no doubt his conversation had something to do with it. And along the way, Wilberforce also befriended a number of other folks who would play key roles in his campaign. It’s possible that Wilberforce’s attention was first arrested by the accounts he heard and read of “the Middle Passage” – the second leg of slave ships’ trip from England to Africa, Africa to the New World, and then home to England again. It was in Africa that the English traders kidnapped men, women and children, often with the help of local chieftains, and packed them into ships without regard to their health or comfort. The conditions were unimaginably awful: overcrowding so excessive that in some cases the captives were piled on top of each other; no fresh air; suffocating heat; and relentless stench. Many died outright during the ensuing weeks, before being unloaded on the other side of the Atlantic. And in at least one case known as the Zong Incident, 131 sick and even relatively healthy slaves were simply tossed overboard into the ocean to drown or be devoured by sharks. The reason: the captain would be rewarded for his work by the value of his cargo at auction, and sick slaves didn’t fetch much; but dead slaves were covered in full by insurance. Metaxas quotes extensively from some of the first-person accounts of the atrocities. I won’t repeat any of them here. I can’t. You must read them yourself. Try not to weep. But it must have been such accounts that transformed Wilberforce and his companions into passionate enemies of slavery. And thanks in part to their zealous efforts to capture the hearts of British citizens, the abolition movement gained strength throughout England in the last quarter of the 18th century. It’s important to recognize the spiritual nature of this movement. As the author notes, “The acutely Christian character of the British abolitionist movement is undeniable, for its leaders were all consciously acting out of the principles of their deeply held faith.” (p 96) Yet some of abolition’s enemies claimed to be Christians, too. Metaxas comments: “For this the leaders of the Church of England, not merely the people in its pews, were to blame. The Church of England at the time had a great deal of money invested in West Indian plantations and did not make any connection between the tenets of the Christian faith and abolition. Making that connection fell to outsiders – to the Methodists and other so-called Dissenters, such as the Quakers and Moravians.” (p 96) (An aside: the author’s discussions of England’s “retreat from serious Christian faith” in the 18th century is one of the fascinating subplots in this book.) At any rate, Wilberforce became convinced that he must to lead the charge against the slave trade in Parliament. For “if, as [he] thought, God Himself was calling him to this task and he shrank from it, God too could find another to do it, and surely would.” It was a highly complicated, heart-wrenching and endlessly frustrating era for Wilberforce, and it involved domestic and international political machinations that would surprise even the careful observer of 21st century American politics. It consumed him for over two decades, robbing him of his peace and his health as he approached Parliamentary victory again and again, only to suffer defeat after debilitating defeat. Wilberforce received a great deal of encouragement along the way, however. For example, in perhaps the last letter he ever penned, just a few days before his death, John Wesley wrote to Wilberforce. He said, in part, “…if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.” Metaxas’s comment on this letter: “What an encouragement it must have been to read these words from the battle-scarred veteran, who had fought the good fight, and run with patience the race, and had kept the faith … And so William Wilberforce now ran, cheered on by a great and growing cloud of witnesses.” (p 145) Wesley’s last epistle arrived in February, 1791. It would be almost exactly 16 years later, in 1807, that the battle would finally be won, with abolition secured in Parliament by a resounding vote of 283-16. Throughout the painfully long proceedings, Metaxas reports, Wilberforce “had sat composed, quite composed.” But when the final vote was tallied, and the rejoicing began, “he was overcome, and taking his head in his hands, he wept.” (p 210) As we watch the celebration unfold, the reader rejoices with the author, and very belatedly, with all those who made this victory possible. It was over! Surely the work was only beginning, but the strongest enemy had been defeated! Hallelujah! But wait: “Let’s not run ahead just yet,” Metaxas says. “Let’s behold [Wilberforce] here for a little while longer, here in this Moment of moments, a man allowed that highest and rarest privilege, to be awake inside his own dream. Seated there, head in his hands, humbled and exalted in his humility, we have the apotheosis of William Wilberforce.” (p 211) And there’s more. Oh, so much more! But my review is already way too long. You simply must read this book. Don’t delay. Read To the Golden Shore, too, and then you can decide for yourself which one is more life-changing. In the meantime, I have to run and order another book by Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer, perhaps, or maybe Martin Luther ...

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An Excellent Biography
*by T***S on April 19, 2007*

That the name of William Wilberforce has largely been lost to history seems somehow unfair. Wilberforce was the driving force behind the abolition of slavery within the British Empire. A Member of Parliament for forty-five years, the results of his efforts are still seen and understood in Western society to this day. Though his impact was felt not only at his time, but has extended through history, few people know his name. In Amazing Grace, Eric Metaxas' new biography of Wilberforce, which was timed to coincide with the release of a film by the same title (which was, in turn, timed to coincide with the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade) he makes the valid comparison to a scientist who discovers the cure for an inoculation against a terrible disease. As the disease is eradicated and passes out of memory, so the scientist's name is likely to be forgotten. And this is what seems to have happened to Wilberforce. We live in a day where slavery is unthinkable and we can hardly conceive of a time when the best and brightest of society defended it and thought little of pillaging the African continent for their own gain. Though those of us who remember Wilberforce know him primarily as the leader of the fight to abolish the slave trade, the truth is that he fought to great battles, the first against slavery and the second for the reformation of manners (which is to say a kind of social reform against rampant immorality and vice). While this biography focuses primarily on the first of these battles, the second does receive some attention as well. Life in Wilberforce's day was brutal, decadent, violent and vulgar. Societal evils were many and horrific: "epidemic alcoholism, child prostitution, child labor, frequent public executions for petty crimes, public dissections and burnings of executed criminals, and unspeakable public cruelty to animals." All of these were far more visible than slavery. Wilberforce knew that, if society was to be brought into line with the commandments of God, it would need to begin with the reformation of manners and he spent much of his life attempting to ban what was vulgar and unbiblical and to promote what was beautiful and Scriptural, knowing that success in the small things would eventually lead to success in greater things. Wilberforce has rightly been credited with giving the West its social conscience. Having read this biography, there are at least three great lessons I have drawn from the life of this great Christian. First, I have seen the value of persistence. Wilberforce fought for years and years before seeing any measurable success in his battle to outlaw the slave trade. Had he not persisted, it may have taken many more years and hundreds of thousands of lives for the trade to be abolished. Second, I have seen that there is hope even more the most evil of the many evils in our society. There was a time when very few could have imagined that slavery would ever be banned and yet, in one lifetime, attitudes were changed so that today slavery is almost unimaginable. As we think about the evils that plague contemporary society we can have hope that minds, hearts and attitudes can change. Third, I have seen the value of incremental change for Wilberforce was willing to accept incremental improvements. At one point he supported a bill, passed on a trial basis, that would regulate the number of slaves that were permitted to be transported on a single ship. Previously slaves had been laid in rows on benches, chained on their sides with the front of one pressed against the back of the next. Following the legislation, improvements were made. Though the bill implicitly and explicitly supported the continuance of slavery, Wilberforce saw it as a step in the right direction and was willing to support it. Another time he voted for a bill that required plantation owners to register all of their slaves. While this bill also supported slavery, Wilberforce saw that a registry of slaves would keep plantation owners from adding to their number of slaves by buying them from illegal slave smugglers. Incremental changes may lead to greater and more profound changes. Some who have read the book have made note of the author's occasional use of sophomoric humor. Though there are several examples, perhaps the most blatant falls outside of the flow of the book's text in the Acknowledgments. "I wish first and foremost to thank my typist, yours truly, for quite literally transcribing my thoughts as I thought them, a feat hardly to be explained, and yet quite literally true." I suppose some find this kind of humor to be funny but in a serious biography it seems a little out of place. Other examples are less obvious and are perhaps more clever than obnoxious: "Wilberforce may have been crazy like a fox, but Fox himself was so often drunk as the proverbial skunk that Wilberforce wisely decided to forego badgering him about becoming involved. Even if Fox had initially assented to lend his name to the cause, it seems rather likely that he may have eventually weaseled out of any real commitment anyway, and it is always possible that, given his affection for dissolute living, he may even have become a mole for the opposition." If you missed the humor in that paragraph, read it again and you should catch it. Though the author's expression can seem a trifle obnoxious at times, this is true more in the early pages than in the majority of the text. The reader who presses on will be richly rewarded, not only with great content but even with some excellent prose, a brief example of which I will provide here. "And thus, history: three men, each named William, each twenty-seven years old, talking at the base of an ancient oak tree on a hill in May: one prime minister, one prime-minister-to-be, and one who would stand from that moment forward at the center of something so big and beyond any single man that a tree whose life had begun several centuries earlier, and would continue for nearly two more, was the humble creature chosen to bear mute witness to the conversation." Despite its few problems, and though this may not be among the greatest biographies ever written, it is certainly a good one and is a worthy addition to any library, personal, church or public. It wonderfully describes and analyzes the life of a great Christian man who can and should serve as an inspiration even today. I enjoyed it thoroughly and commend it to you.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Better than the Movie
*by M***D on February 3, 2008*

Amazing Grace by Eric Metaxas is the New York Times bestseller about the life of William Wilberforce. The subtitle describes the theme: The heroic campaign to end slavery. I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Metaxas's book because he so obviously liked and admired his subject. In the epilogue he writes, "I confess that while writing this book I sometimes had the happy sense that Wilberforce was present, or on the verge of it, twinkling with delight at my elbow, wearing that rosebud smile of his, head quizzically cocked." However, it is Mr. Metaxas's sharp wit and skill with words - not his admiration - that brings Mr. Wilberforce to life and illuminates the dark underbelly of the Georgian era that arose from the unfeeling and unquestioning pursuit of the enlightenment. I sputtered in startled amusement when Mr. Metaxas described the public ox roast that William Wilberforce hosted when he stood for Parliament the first time, an event that had occurred in "1809 to celebrate to Golden Jubilee of King George III, and another was held in 1887 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Victoria. And here now, in Hull in 1780, an ox roast was held to celebrate the twenty-first birthday of the grandson of the late Alderman, the scion of the great Wilberforce family, a tiny, brilliant, and exceedingly ambitious young man who happened to be standing for Parliament in the general election just two weeks away . . . . It was duly noted that the newly minted twenty-one-year-old had won exactly as many votes as his two opponents combined, which gave him a nice little push as he entered parliament--the ox had not twirled in vain." Mr. Metaxas writes with empathy as well as with a sharp wit. Without understanding the oppressiveness of the Georgian society, one cannot understand William Wilberforce's achievement. After describing the "cruelty, vulgarity, and hopelessness" of the poor, Mr. Metaxas describes "prostitution, which was so rampant one can scarcely imagine it. No less than 25 percent of all unmarried women in London were prostitutes. There were brothels that exclusively offered the services of girls under fourteen, and the average age of a prostitute in London during those years was sixteen." And Mr. Wilberforce persevered and overcame, becoming the voice of conscience for his society. Mr. Metaxas is at his best when he describes the life of William Wilberforce--his upbringing and early life that planted the seeds of his later life, but nearly caused him to turn his back on his great calling--his friendships, his marriage, and the effects of the multitude of setbacks on Mr. Wilberforce. Though absorbing, the text becomes drier when Mr. Metaxas focuses on the issues themselves, particularly the slave trade, rather than on the person of Mr. Wilberforce as he participated in those issues. The Faith Discussion Guide at the end of the text is particularly welcome. The study of the great actions of a humble man may edify, but the application of the principles of those actions can change our lives, the lives of those around us, and our society--if we allow it.

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