It is said that when the Duke of Kent, the father of Queen Victoria, was expressing, in the prospect of death, some concern about the state of his soul, his physician endeavored to soothe his mind by referring to his high respectability, his honorable conduct in the distinguished situation in which Providence had placed him, when he stopped him short, saying —
“No; remember if I am to be saved, it is not as a prince, but as a sinner.”
It is well for both princes and people to understand that they are but men, that they are but dust, and that in the presence of God, kings and peasants, princes and paupers, millionaires and beggars, wise men and ignorant men, stand on a common footing. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
All need forgiveness, pardon, and salvation; and all, if saved at all, must be saved by the mercy of Him who loved the lost, and who came into the world to save sinners. Publicans and Pharisees, wise men and ignorant, all must meet upon the same level, and, as it were, cry, in the language of the publican, “God be merciful to me a sinner!”
ML 11/08/1959