He had not been long gone before the natural result of an indiscriminate conversion made itself apparent, and St. Paul had to write to the young Church at Corinth a letter which has been lost or suppressed. This was followed by a second, and that by a third, and we have got only the two latter. Probably, the Church of Corinth thought it best to put the first in the fire and not publish its shame. But the second and third--the first and second, as we call them--throw a tolerably clear light on the state of this Church. There were dissensions in it, and no wonder; then scandal, and, again,--no wonder. Of the dissensions I need not speak. First among the scandals came the Love Feasts. The feast was instituted in order that all the faithful might meet, and eat and drink together, the rich contributing the provisions and sitting down with the poor. It is not to be confounded with the Holy Eucharist, which was something quite distinct. The Love Feast took place at night, the Eucharist in the early morning. However excellent in intention the institution might be, in a very short time it was abused. The well-to-do brought food and wine with them, and ate and drank by themselves, apart from the slaves and the members whom poverty prevented from contributing. The poor were compelled to look hungrily on, while the rich brethren, having more than sufficed, indulged to excess. One was hungry, and another was drunken. It is not difficult to trace the origin of these Love Feasts; they were a local adaptation from the heathen ceremonial of the Temple of Aphrodite. The Greeks had mysteries in their principal temples, into which the devout were initiated. Baptism was one of the initiatory acts. Then the neophytes were taught certain secret doctrines which they were forbidden to reveal to the profane without. After that they partook together of a sacred feast, and then ensued ecstatic raptures, hysterical ravings, and orgies of a licentious character in those shrines dedicated to the goddess of love. The newly converted Christians of Corinth were desirous of getting as much excitement out of their new religion as they could. So they treated Christian baptism as an initiation into Christian mysteries; they instituted the Love Feast as a close reproduction of the banquet with which they were familiar in the Temple of Aphrodite, and then followed a condition of disorder very little more decent than the heathen orgies.