Excerpt from A Brief History of the Moravian Church: Prepared by Teachers and Friends of the Salem Home Sunday School The history of the Christian Church begins with the birth of Jesus Christ, in Bethlehem of Judea, though His disciples received the name of "Christians" at Antioch, several years after His ascension. The disciples, whom He drew around Him during His three years of active ministry, were members of the Jewish nation, which since the days of Abraham had been particularly set apart by God, and had received many revelations through priests and prophets concerning God's will for men. To these Jewish believers in God, Christ brought new light, a new revelation, confirming the truths of the Jewish Scriptures which we know as the Old Testament, teaching them of the love of God and the brotherhood of men, and of Himself as the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Saviour of the world. The Birth and Life, the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ, moved the men who had known Him best to carry on His work, so that as years passed by the Christian Church constantly increased in numbers and in influence. Although to-day there are many denominations with differing forms of organization, and varying interpretations of certain truths, they are all parts of the universal Christian Church, with the same origin, and with a common history during the early centuries. After the ascension of Jesus, the Apostles returned to Jerusalem as He commanded them, there to await the gift of the Holy Ghost. Their first act was to select by lot one of the disciples to fill the place of Judas, - the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the Apostles. Upon the day of Pentecost Jesus' promise of "power from on high" was most wonderfully fulfilled, and from that day forward we find the Apostles, filled with divine strength and courage, publicly proclaiming the Gospel of Christ and meeting with great success. But "the disciple is not above his master" and as Jesus had foretold persecution soon came. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.