laring at a newspaper, gasps, "Willie's
ship--is--wrecked! five lost--thirteen saved by the lifeboat." One
faint gleam of hope! "Willie may be among the thirteen!" Minutes, that
seem hours, of agony ensue; then a telegram arrives, "_Saved, Mother--
thank God,--by the lifeboat_."

"Ay, thank God," echoes Willie's mother, with the profoundest emotion
and sincerity she ever felt; but think you, reader, that she did no
more? Did she pass languidly over the records of lifeboat work after
_that_ day? Did she leave the management and support of lifeboats to
_the people of the coast_? I trow not. But what difference had the
saving of Willie made in the lifeboat cause? Was hers the only Willie
in the wide World? Are we to act on so selfish a principle, as that we
shall decline to take an interest in an admittedly grand and good and
national cause, until our eyes are forcibly opened by "our Willie" being
in danger? Of course I address myself to people who have really kind
and sympathetic hearts, but who, from one cause or another, have not yet
had this subject earnestly submitted to their consideration. To those
who have _no heart_ to consider the woes and necessities of suffering
humanity, I have nothing whatever to say,--except,--God help them!

Let me enforce this plea--that _inland_ cities and towns and villages
should support the Lifeboat Institution--with another imaginary case.

A tremendous gale is blowing from the south-east, sleet driving like
needles--enough, almost, to put your eyes out. A "good ship," under
close-reefed topsails, is bearing up for port after a prosperous voyage,
but the air is so thick with drift that they cannot make out the guiding
lights. She strikes and sticks fast on outlying sands, where the sea is
roaring and leaping like a thousand fiends in the wintry blast. There
are passengers on board from the Antipodes, with boxes and bags of
gold-dust, the result of years of toil at the diggings. They do not
realise the full significance of the catastrophe. No wonder--they are
landsmen! The tide chances to be low at the time; as it rises, they
awake to the dread reality. Billows burst over them like miniature
Niagaras. The good ship which has for many weeks breasted the waves so
gallantly, and seemed so solid and so strong, is treated like a cork,
and becomes apparently an egg-shell!

Night comes--darkness increasing the awful aspect of the situation
tenfold. What are boxes and ba