The words of verses 19, 20 show that St Paul is thinking of that presence of the Spirit in the Christian community, which is the spring of its affections and activities. The Spirit of Jesus, the Son of man, is a kindly and gracious Spirit, the guardian of brotherhood and friendship, the inspirer of pure social joys and genial converse. The joy in the Holy Ghost that in its warmth and freshness filled the hearts of the first Christians, soared upward on the wings of song. Their very talk was music: they "spoke to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with their heart to the Lord." Love loves to sing. Its joys
"from out our hearts arise, And speak and sparkle in our eyes, And vibrate on our tongue."
All exalted sentiment tends to rhythmical expression. There is a mystical alliance, which is amongst the most significant facts in our constitution, between emotion and art. The rudest natures, touched by high feeling, will shape themselves to some sort of beauty, to some grace and refinement of expression. Each new stirring of the pulse of man's common life has been marked by a re-birth of poetry and art. The songs of Mary and Zechariah were the parents and patterns of a multitude of holy canticles. In the Psalms of Scripture the New Testament Church found already an instrument of wide compass strung and tuned for her use. We can imagine the delight with which the Gentile Christians would take up the Psalter and draw out one and another of its pearls, and would in turn recite them at their meetings, and adapt them to their native measures and modes of song. After a while, they began to mix with the praise-songs of Israel newer strains--"hymns" to the glory of Christ and the Father, such as that with which this epistle opens, needing but little change in form to make it a true poem, and such as those which break in upon the dread visions of the Apocalypse; and added to these, "spiritual songs" of a more personal and incidental character, like Simeon's _Nunc dimittis_ or Paul's swan-song in his last letter to Timothy. In verse 14 above we detected, as we thought, an early Church paraphrase of the Old Testament. In later epistles addressed to Ephesus, there are fragments of just such artless chants as the Asian Christians, exhorted and taught by their apostle, were wont to sing in their assemblies: see 1 Timothy iii. 16, and 2 Timothy ii. 11-13.
Upon this congenial soil, we trace the beginnings of Christian psalmody. The parallel text of Colossians (iii. 16) discloses in the songs of the Pauline Churches a didactic as well as a lyric character. The apostle bids his readers "_teach and admonish_ one another by psalms, hymns, spiritual songs." The form of the sentence of chapter iv. 4-6 in this letter, and of 1 Timothy iii. 16, suggests that these passages were destined for use as a chanted rehearsal of Christian belief. Thus "the word of Christ dwelling richly" in the heart, poured itself freely from the lips, and added to its grave discourse the charms of gladdening and spirit-stirring song.
As in their heathen days they were used to "speak to each other," in festive or solemn hours, with hymns to Artemis of the Ephesians, or Dionysus giver of the vine, or to Persephoné sad queen of the dead--in songs merry and gay, too often loose and wanton; in songs of the dark underworld and the grim Furies and inexorable Fate, that told how life fleets fast and we must pluck its pleasures while we may;--so now the Christians of Ephesus and Colossae, of Pergamum and of Smyrna would sing of the universal Father whose presence fills earth and sky, of the Son of His love, His image amongst men, who died in sacrifice for their sins and asked grace for His murderers, of the joys of forgiveness and the cleansed heart, of life eternal and the treasure laid up for the just in the heavenly places, of Christ's return in glory and the judgement of the nations and the world quickly to dissolve and perish, of a brotherhood dearer than earthly kindred, of the saints who sleep in Jesus and in peace await His coming, of the Good Shepherd who feeds His sheep and leads them to fountains of living water calling each by his name, of creation redeemed and glorified by His love, of pain and sorrow sanctified and the trials that make perfect in Christ's discipline, of the joy that fills the heart in suffering for Him, and the vision of His face awaiting us beyond the grave. So reciting and chanting--now in single voice, now in full chorus--singing the Psalms of David to their Greek music, or hymns composed by their leaders, or sometimes improvised in the rapture of the moment, the Churches of Ephesus and of the Asian cities lauded and glorified "the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" and the counsels of redeeming love. So their worship and fellowship were filled with gladness. Thus in their great Church meetings, and in smaller companies, many a joyous hour passed; and all hearts were cheered and strengthened in the Lord.