Mirinda Grac'! ho dolĉa son'! (tr. Konisi gaku)

Author (sts. 1-5): John Newton

John Newton (b. London, England, 1725; d. London, 1807) was born into a Christian home, but his godly mother died when he was seven, and he joined his father at sea when he was eleven. His licentious and tumul­tuous sailing life included a flogging for attempted desertion from the Royal Navy and captivity by a slave trader in West Africa. After his escape he himself became the captain of a slave ship. Several factors contributed to Newton's conversion: a near-drowning in 1748, the piety of his friend Mary Catlett, (whom he married in 1750), and his reading of Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ. In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and, in association with William Wilberforce, eventually became an ardent abolitionist. After becoming a tide… Go to person page >

Translator: Konisi Gaku

Konisi gaku (also transliterated Konisi Gaku, Konishi Gaku, etc.; note that Konis(h)i, the surname, is almost always given first, in accordance with Japanese custom), in Japanese 小西岳, 1934-2018, was a Japanese professor of Physics, and an important writer in and translator into Esperanto. He translated many songs, short stories, poems, science fiction, and novels (particularly by Nobel Prize winner Kawabata Yasunari). He also wrote originally in Esperanto. Go to person page >

Author (st. 6): Anonymous

In some hymnals, the editors noted that a hymn's author is unknown to them, and so this artificial "person" entry is used to reflect that fact. Obviously, the hymns attributed to "Author Unknown" "Unknown" or "Anonymous" could have been written by many people over a span of many centuries. Go to person page >