The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-12-07
DR, DICKINSON
 ON CONVERSION
Baptist Divine Breaches Sermon
 in High School Building
THE LIFE OF CORNELIUS
He Says Every Man Has a Religious Nature Which Is Susceptible of Great Improvement Under
 Diieent Culture.

Dr. A. J. DICKINSON, pdStOf or Ine flISt Baptist church, held his service in the high school building yesterday morning and preached to large congregation.
 He took his text from Acts xi:13: Words whereby thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house."
 The preacher gave a sketch of religious life in Palestine during the years SS to 42, when Cornelius was stationed at Caesa- req in charge of a Roman garrison, and especially the incidents connected with the setting up of the statue of caligula in the synagogue of Alexandria and other cities of the east and the mission of Pe- tronius to set up the emperors statue in the temple of Jerusalem; "The abomina- ton of desolatlon standing in the holy place"
 The speaker then discussed religion in the Roman army in the east, when the cohorts were used as pioneers for the Romanization of the world. much as our army is the forerunner of the American ization of the Philippines. He then took up the character of Cornelius and showed his progress in religious experience, as Roman in the religion of the Romans He was a representative of what may be called natural religion and shows that strong study, constant religious sense al- ways characteristic of the Roman people, who for time immemorial had done naught except they first consulted the gods. In the first chapter of Romans we have probably the first discussion of natural religion and it's effect on life.
 Every man has a religious nature which Is susceptible of great improvement under diligent culture, as In the case of Corne- Illus This religious nature expresses it. self first in reverence for God secondly, in charity towards men, thirdly, in pray erful seeking of God; fourthly, In moral uprightness of life. So we read that Cor nelius was "One that feared God in all his house, prayed always, gave much aims, a righteous man." well spoken by the Jews cultured Roman religionist.
 The more educated and cultured of the Romans, such as Cornelius realized that the old forms of religion and the tradi- tional gods were dead beyond power of restoration, and that the new worship of the emperor was but a religious inn posture and so they turned themselves to- ward the east for cults in which to ex- press the newly reviving religious sense. While it may be truthfully said that in the days of Cicero religion was dead, yet Augustus had done much to revive re- ligion, and in behalf of this revival Virgil Iivy and other great Augustan writers produced their immortal treatises. new form of Judaism construed in the light of Grecian philosophy, preserv- ing the theology and morality of the Old Testament but discarding it's ceremonies was that religion of the Jews of the Dis persion Philo was their great leader and travelled back and forth from Alex andria to Rome when Cornelius was at Caesarea.
 Cornelius at first found this cult most congenial to his faith It is probaly as high a type of natural religion as man has ever produced. But Cornelius even passed from Philonian Judaism to a knowledge of Jesus, his teaching, his good works and considered Him doubtless the purest, most perfect of all the men Of God.
 He believed, as did Nicodemas, that he was "a prophet sent from God, for no man could do the works that he did, ex- cept God be with him." So he believed that Jesus had some peculiar connection with the Divine, and admired Him and adored Him as his ideal of man in his relations to God, and tried to walk in His steps. It was the type of religion presented in a widely popular book called "In His Steps," or What Would Jesus Do?" wherein men seek to initiate the perfect and pure one. This, to my mind, is but naturalism with Christian ideals. The great problem of religion is not to initiate Jesus, so much as to be one with Him in character and heart Cornelius found that this religion could not give him satisfaction and so he was directed to send for Peter who will tell him words whereby thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house."
 These words as here presented in Peers sermon on how Jesus was cruci- fled and rose again and sitteth at the right hand of God as judge of the quick and dead in order that every one that believeth on Him might receive rems- sion of sins. These have ever been in all the ages since the words and the only words that have brought to men assur- ance of salvation.