In the days of the first fervour the Christian brethren set up a plan of voluntary socialism, and wished to have all things in common; but the plan did not work, and they had recourse to a systematic relief of the poor. One feature of this relief was what were called Love-feasts. It was not unusual in ancient times for large bodies of men to dine together, and large dinner-parties were often made up by each man bringing his contribution to the feast. With some such idea as this the Christians met, men and women together, the rich bringing the supplies, and they all dined together. Probably they did this every day at the earliest period, and some think that these meals constituted the celebration of what is called the Lord’s Supper. The love-feasts were unquestionably associated with this institution; but in the course of time they became less frequent, and generally took place after the administration of the Eucharist. They continued till the fifth century at least, and were often held in the churches after churches were erected. These dinners were not always scenes of perfect propriety, as St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians shows, and on some occasions intoxication and riotousness prevailed. These feasts went by the name of Loves, or Love-feasts, as we now translate the word. We need not wonder that Pagans should suspect that the Loves were not of the purest. Then there was another practice, still more foreign to our Christian ideas. There is no command in the New Testament to keep the Sunday, or to stand or sit at singing, or to repeat the Creed or to keep Good Friday or Christmas, or to do a hundred other things about which Christians have wrangled with all earnestness; but there is a commandment five times repeated in the Apostolic Epistles, and indicative of the strong bond of brotherhood which bound Christian brothers and sisters to each other, to this effect: “Salute the brethren with a holy kiss,” or in another form, “Salute the brethren with a kiss of love.” It is likely that at first this kiss was imparted at every meeting, but gradually it became limited to the great sacramental occasions, such as baptism and the Eucharist. At first, too, and for a considerable time, the Christian brothers and sisters kissed each other. It is easy to see that such a practice would give rise to scandalous reports, and there is evidence in the ecclesiastical writers that the early Christians did not always make it a holy kiss, as it should have been. Athenagoras[136] quotes a saying which he attributes to our Lord, and which evidently deals with an abuse of this practice. It is to this effect: “Whoever kisses a second time, because he has found pleasure in it, commits a sin.” And Clement[137] of Alexandria thus speaks of the matter: “Love is not tested by a kiss, but by kindly feeling. But there are those that do nothing but make the churches resound with a kiss. For this very thing, the shameless use of