nded on a bank
off the south coast of Ireland. The captain and crew forsook her, and
escaped to shore in their boats, but one man was inadvertently left on
board. Soon after, the wind moderated and shifted, the ship slipped off
the bank into deep water, and drifted to the northward. The crew of the
_Cahore_ lifeboat were on the look-out, observed the vessel passing,
launched their boat, and after a long pull against wind and sea, boarded
the vessel, and rescued the Spanish sailor. But they did more. Finding
seven feet of water in the hold, they rigged the pumps, trimmed the
sails, carried the ship into port, and handed her over to an agent for
the owners. This vessel and cargo were valued at 20,000 pounds, and we
think we are justified in saying that England, through the
instrumentality of her Lifeboat Institution, presented that handsome sum
to Spain upon that occasion!

But many ships are much more costly than that was. Some time ago a ship
named the _Golden Age_ was lost upon our shores; it was valued at
200,000 pounds. If that single ship had been one of the thirty-eight
saved last year (and it might have been), the sum thus saved to the
nation would have been more than sufficient to buy up all the lifeboats
in the kingdom twice over! But that ship was not amongst the saved. It
was lost. So was the _Ontario_ of Liverpool, which was wrecked in
October 1864, and valued at 100,000 pounds. Also the _Assaye_, wrecked
on the Irish coast, and valued at 200,000 pounds. Here are 500,000
pounds lost for ever by the wreck of these three ships alone in one
year! Do you know, reader, what such sums represent? Are you aware
that the value of the _Ontario_ alone is equal to the income for one
year of the London Missionary Society, wherewith it supports its
institutions at home and abroad, and spreads the blessed knowledge of
gospel truth over a vast portion of the globe?

But we have only spoken of three ships--no doubt three of the largest
size--yet only three of the lost. Couple the above figures with the
fact that the number of ships lost, or seriously damaged, _every year_,
on the shores of the United Kingdom is above _two thousand_, and you
will have some idea of one of the reasons why taxation is so heavy; and
if you couple them with the other fact, that, from twenty to thirty
ships, great and small, are saved by lifeboats every year, you will
perceive that, whatever amount may be given to the Lifeboat Insti