It is not with conceit but by constraint that one ventures to write on the priestly function in the modern church. Can anything new be said about it? Can anything be said at all without wounding the sensibilities and adding to the burdens—already too heavy—of the modern minister? Criticism there must be, construction there ought to be, in any discussion of this subject. But both criticism and construction will be inevitably and deeply affected by the temperament of the writer. So at the outset you are asked to believe that, however dogmatic this discussion may at times appear, it is carried on in the perfect awareness that there is another side to most of the questions that will arise, and that excuses and even justifications may be urged for some of the tendencies upon which those who have cultivated a religious scrupulousness in such matters look with increasing dismay.