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religion of Christ took its rise in Palestine nearly nineteen hundred years ago, and at the first it clearly stood in the most intimate relation to the established Church of the Jewish people. Fulfillment, not destruction, was the avowed object of the Founder; and, as well by example as by precept, He disallowed the notion that any violent breach with the existing system was contemplated. He claimed to stand in line with the long succession of the Hebrew prophets; His ministry was the completion, and therefore the verification, of theirs. He was an obedient member of the Jewish Church, "born under