10:4 Thy prayers and thine alms. Even though Cornelius had not known about Christ, nor was he even a practitioner of the Jewish system of sacrifice and worship, he nevertheless was a “devout man, and one that feared God…which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway” (Acts 10:2), and God was pleased with this. While these actions were not capable of earning salvation, his sincere acceptance and practice of the limited spiritual light that he had received resulted in God sending more light to him. It may be that this is a model of how God may deal with those men and women of any time and nation who do accept and follow such light as they have.