The annual Spode Conference of Practical Liturgy is now well established as a source of intelligent comment on the renewal of liturgical life in Great Britain. Several books have resulted from it, including The Parish in the Modern World, edited by Charles Davis. and, already in 'Compass Books', The Mass and the People of God, edited by J. D. Crichton. Each has been timely and topical. This certainly applies to The Ministry of the Word which was the subject of the 1966 Conference. Al Christians look to God's word for help in thinking out the mode of their engagement with life. That the Bible could provide such help has always been known: the problem has been. and still is, how to get at it and how to communicate what it contains Because the field is so large the activity chiefly examined in this book is the witness of preaching. As Dr C. H. Dodd says of the gospels, each passage 'contains packed within it the substance of the total Christian message. The packing was done by the first witnesses with deliberate care. It is the task of the preacher, as I understand it, to unpack the contents and to display them so that the message itself comes home.' If it is for all men to do by example what the preacher must do through what he says, the important essays in this book should be of wide interest.