The third group of lectures, which may be regarded as subdivided into two portions, naturally connects itself with, and follows, the subjects just specified. After the general consideration of difficulties connected with religion and Christianity, the attention of the reader is now directed to the more special difficulties connected with the Holy Scriptures. In the first portion of the group the subject of the Gradual Development of Revelation, or, as the title was re-defined by the lecturer, the Gradual Nature of Divine Revelation, properly occupies the first place. It is followed by a lecture in which there will be found a careful consideration of some special instances of difficulty connected with the historical portions especially of the Old Testament. These two lectures were to have been followed by a consideration of the moral difficulties that have been felt in reference to some parts of the Old Testament; but for this subject, which, if properly treated, would have probably claimed a large share of attention, the Committee were not able to secure the services of a lecturer for the present year. This is to be regretted, as there is no subject connected with the Holy Scriptures which at the present time more requires a candid and sober consideration; no discussion which, if fairly conducted, would do more to remove many honestly felt difficulties, and to many minds to bring probably lasting reassurance. Without presuming to enter, however slightly, into such a subject in a discursive paper like the present, we will venture to make this general remark, which perhaps may be found helpful, viz., that in dealing with all such difficulties we must carefully distinguish between those connected with Divine workings, and those connected with human actions. The former are, in their real nature, utterly beyond the finite judgment of man. All that we may presume to consider is the way or manner in which they are brought before us by the writer, and all that we can either safely or wisely subject to criticism are the aspects or colouring under which they are presented. We really are not competent to sketch out theories of Divine government, even in the simplest matters, and with all the advantages of contemporaneous knowledge; nay, in the lives of ourselves and those around us, there are, as has been wisely observed, innumerable events of sorrow, and countless circumstances of suffering, of which the economic purpose cannot even be guessed at in our present state of knowledge, and of the exact purposes of which no sober or reverent thinker ever dreams of attempting to form any estimate whatever. It is thus utterly out of the question to attempt to consider the difficulties connected with the Divine workings, except as to the manner of their representation by the human narrator, whose human powers were the instruments by which God was pleased to communicate the outward facts of those workings to the children of men.