The usage was afterwards perpetrated among the Jews. The daughters of Shiloh were dancing according to custom, at the solemn feast of the Lord, when the young men of the tribe of Benjamin, to whom they had been refused for wives, carried them off by the counsel of the old men of Israel. And at this day, in Palestine, the women, assembled near the tombs of their relatives, dance in a mournful manner, and utter cries of lamentation. We also know that the first Christians held among themselves _agapæ, _or feasts of charity, in memory of the last supper which Jesus celebrated with his apostles, from which the Pagans took occasion to bring against them the most odious charges; on which, to banish every shadow of licentiousness, the pastors forbade the kiss of peace, that concluded the ceremony to be given between persons of different sexes. But various abuses, which were even then complained of by St. Paul, and which the Council of Gangres, in the year 324, vainly undertook to reform, at length caused the _agapæ_ to be abolished in 397, by the Third Council of Carthage, of which the forty-first canon ordained, that the holy mysteries should be celebrated fasting. It will not be doubted that these feastings were accompanied by dances, when it is recollected that, according to Scaliger, the bishops were called in the Latin Church "_præsules,_" (from "_præsiliendo_") only because they led off the dance. Heliot, in his "History of the Monastic Orders," says also, that during the persecutions which disturbed the peace of the first Christians, congregations were formed of men and women, who, after the manner of the Therapeutæ, retired into the deserts, where they assembled in the hamlets on Sundays and feast days, and danced piously, singing the prayers of the Church. In Portugal, in Spain, and in Roussillon, solemn dances are still performed in honor of the mysteries of Christianity. On every vigil of a feast of the Virgin, the young women assemble before the doors of the churches dedicated to her, and pass the night in dancing round, and singing hymns and canticles in honor of her. Cardinal Ximenes restored in his time, in the cathedral of Toledo, the ancient usage of the Mozarabian mass, during which dances are performed in the choir and the nave, with equal order and devotion. In France too, about the middle of the last century, the priests and all the people of the Limoges might be seen dancing round in the collegiate church, singing: "_Sant Marcian pregas pernous et nous epingaren per bous_"--that is, "St. Martian, pray for us, and we will dance for you."