e temporal welfare of the laity,
as well as for their own. Their manner of life, not only in the privacy
of their own household, but often even before the public, does not
differ in an extreme degree from that of secular-minded persons, either
in its ostensible austerity or in the archaism of its apparatus. This is
truest for those denominations that have wandered the farthest. To
this objection it is to be said that we have here to do not with a
discrepancy in the theory of sacerdotal life, but with an imperfect
conformity to the scheme on the part of this body of clergy. They are
but a partial and imperfect representative of the priesthood, and must
not be taken as exhibiting the sacerdotal scheme of life in an authentic
and competent manner. The clergy of the sects and denominations might be
characterized as a half-caste priesthood, or a priesthood in process of
becoming or of reconstitution. Such a priesthood may be expected to
show the characteristics of the sacerdotal office only as blended
and obscured with alien motives and traditions, due to the disturbing
presence of other factors than those of animism and status in the
purposes of the organizations to which this non-conforming fraction of
the priesthood belongs.

Appeal may be taken direct to the taste of any person with a
discriminating and cultivated sense of the sacerdotal proprieties, or
to the prevalent sense of what constitutes clerical decorum in any
community at all accustomed to think or to pass criticism on what a
clergyman may or may not do without blame. Even in the most extremely
secularized denominations, there is some sense of a distinction that
should be observed between the sacerdotal and the lay scheme of life.
There is no person of sensibility but feels that where the members of
this denominational or sectarian clergy depart from traditional usage,
in the direction of a less austere or less archaic demeanor and apparel,
they are departing from the ideal of priestly decorum. There is probably
no community and no sect within the range of the Western culture in
which the bounds of permissible indulgence are not drawn appreciably
closer for the incumbent of the priestly office than for the common
layman. If the priest's own sense of sacerdotal propriety does not
effectually impose a limit, the prevalent sense of the proprieties on
the part of the community will commonly assert itself so obtrusively as
to lead to his conformity or his retirement