When the Rev. John Newton was a blind elderly man and could no longer read he heard someone recite our text for today. In response he said:

“I am not what I ought to be. Ah! how imperfect and deficient. I am not what I might be, considering my privileges and opportunities. I am not what I wish to be. God, who knows my heart, knows I wish to be like Him. I am not what I hope to be. Before long, I will drop this clay tabernacle, to be like Him and see Him as He is! Yet, I am not what I once was — a child of sin, and slave of the devil! Though not all these, not what I ought to be, not what I might be, not what I wish or hope to be, and not what I once was, I think I can truly say with the apostle, "By the grace of God I am what I am.”

John Newton's tombstone reads: "John Newton, 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 had long laboured to destroy!"