r out and not know it. So
the Apostle adds the one way to keep our lives right, and the one source
of true, practical wisdom--the 'understanding what the will of the Lord
is.' He will not go far wrong whose instinctive question, as each new
moment, with its solemn, animating possibilities, meets him, is, 'What
wilt Thou have me to do?' He will not be nearly right who does not first
of all ask that.

Then Paul comes to his precept of temperance. It naturally flows from
the preceding, inasmuch as a drunken man is as sure to be incapable of
taking heed to his conduct as of walking straight. He reels in both. He
is stone-blind to the meaning of the moments. He hears no call, though
the 'voice of the trumpet' may be 'exceeding loud,' and as for
understanding what the will of the Lord is, that is far beyond him. The
intoxication of an hour or the habit of drinking makes obedience to the
foregoing precepts impossible. This master vice carries all other vices
in its pocket.

Paul makes a daring, and, as some would think, an irreverent,
comparison, when he proposes being 'filled with the Spirit' as the
Christian alternative or substitute to being 'drunken with wine.' But
the daring comparison suggests deep truth. The spurious exhilaration,
the loosening of the bonds of care, the elevation above the pettiness
and monotony of daily life, which the drunkard seeks, and is degraded
and deceived in proportion as he momentarily finds, are all ours,
genuinely, nobly, and to our infinite profit, if we have our empty
spirits filled with that Divine Life. That exhilaration does not froth
away, leaving bitter dregs in the cup. That loosening of the bonds of
care, and elevation above life's sorrows, does not flow from foolish
oblivion of facts, nor end in their being again roughly forced on us.
'Riot' bellows itself hoarse, and is succeeded by corresponding
depression; but the calm joys of the Spirit-filled spirit last, grow,
and become calmer and more joyful every day.

The boisterous songs of boon companions are set in contrast with the
Christian 'psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,' which were already in
use, and a snatch from one of which Paul has just quoted.
Good-fellowship tempts men to drink together, and a song is a
shoeing-horn for a glass; but the _camaraderie_ is apt to end in blows,
and is a poor caricature of the bond knitting all who are filled with
the Spirit to one another, and making them willing to serve one another.