We turn, however, back again to the design and working of the Society. It was established to meet this growing scepticism, and with a due recognition of the causes which have just been specified. It was not started, as has been sometimes said, with a little irony, for the purpose of restoring a belief in Christianity, but for the purpose of meeting argument with argument, and of supplying the many that are now fluctuating between belief and no belief with sober answers and valid arguments drawn forth anew from the great treasury of Christian evidences. This is the true design and object of the Society. Its mode of carrying out this design has hitherto been threefold--first, by means of lectures addressed to the educated; secondly, by the formation of classes under competent class-leaders, for the instruction of those in lower grades of society who are exposed to the thickening dangers arising from that organized diffusion of infidel principles which is one of the saddest and most monitory signs of the present time. Thirdly, the Society is endeavouring to stimulate private study by the circulation of useful tracts, and by the offer of prizes to such as may be willing that their private study should be tested by competitive examination. All these three modes of carrying out its work have been adopted during the present year; and, so far as can be inferred from the work that has been done, and from the various expressions of public opinion, with considerable success. Popular attention has naturally been directed more especially to the first of the modes specified--the lectures to the educated; but it is satisfactory to state, ere we pass at once to our explanatory comments on the plan of these lectures, that the formation of classes has answered even beyond expectation, and that, from the amount of the competition for the prizes that have been offered, examination in Christian evidences will form a large and most interesting portion of the future work of the Society. II. We may now turn our attention to the lectures that are included in the present volume--our first year's work. The number of the lectures was twelve. One of these, the lecture on the Internal Evidence of the Authenticity of St. John's Gospel, is unfortunately not included in the present volume, owing to the desire expressed by the learned writer that it should not be published. The absence is much to be regretted; first, on account of the value and importance of the lecture; and, secondly, on account of the partial break which has thus been caused in the sequence of the lectures.