In addition to the administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the worship of the early Church consisted of singing, prayer, reading the Scriptures, and preaching.  In the earliest notice of the Christians of the second century which occurs in any pagan writer, their psalmody, with which they commenced their religious services, [464:2] is particularly mentioned; for, in his celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan, Pliny states that they met together, before the rising of the sun, to “sing hymns to Christ as to a God.”  It is highly probable that the “hymns” here spoken of were the Psalms of the Old Testament.  Many of these inspired effusions celebrate the glories of Immanuel, and as, for obvious reasons, the Messianic Psalms would be used more frequently than any others, it is not strange that the disciples are represented as assembling to sing praise to Christ.  But it would appear that the Church at this time was not confined to the ancient Psalter.  Hymns of human composition were occasionally employed; [464:3] and one of these, to be found in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, [464:4] was, perhaps, sung in the early part of the third century by the Christians of the Egyptian capital.  Influential bishops sometimes introduced them by their own authority, but the practice was regarded with suspicion, and seems to have been considered irregular.  Hence Paul of Samosata, in the Council of Antioch held A.D. 269, was blamed for discontinuing the Psalms formerly used, and for establishing a new and very exceptionable hymnology. [465:1]

In the church, as well as in the synagogue, the whole congregation joined in the singing; [465:2] but instrumental music was never brought into requisition.  The early Christians believed that the organs of the human voice are the most appropriate vehicles for giving utterance to the feelings of devotion; and viewing the lute and the harp as the carnal ordinances of a superannuated dispensation, they rejected their aid in the service of the sanctuary.  Long after this period one of the most eminent of the ancient fathers describes the music of the flutes, sackbuts, and psalteries of the temple worship as only befitting the childhood of the Church.  “It was,” says he, “permitted to the Jews, as sacrifice was, for the heaviness and grossness of their souls.  God condescended to their weakness, because they were lately drawn off from idols; but now, instead of instruments, we may use our own bodies to praise Him withal.” [465:3]

The account of the worship of the Church, given by a Christian writer who flourished about the middle of the second century, is exceedingly instructive.  “On the day which is called Sunday,” says Justin Martyr, “there is a meeting together in one place of all who dwell either in towns or in the country; and the memoirs of the apostles, or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as the time permits.  When the reading ceases, the president delivers a discourse, in which he makes an application