WITH " revolving years" the seasons of storm again and again occur, and each season brings more and more prominently into view the " Life-boat and its Work," whilst each seems to demand for that work a greater and greater amount of public sympathy and support. All honour to those brave fellows who imperil their lives in its performance! All honour to those whose philanthropy and liberality provide them with the means and the encouragement that enable them to execute this good work ! That the bold spirits of our hardy seacoast men will always be ready to undertake their share of this noble service, and that the warm blood of English men and women will ever stir their hearts to aid and encourage those generous men, are now settled points. As, however, the proudest and strongest barque may drift into danger if not controlled and navigated with consummate skill, so the best and bravest of human undertakings may fail to successfully effect its aim, unless guided with judgment and care, as well as directed with energy and zeal.

We therefore, in these few remarks on the treatment of our life-boat men, propose to indicate two dangers which " lie ahead," or rather, to use perhaps a more correct metaphor, which bound,on either side, the Channel through which our noble barque must steer.

The one of these dangers is palpable enough; but the other, lying beneath the surface, like the sunken rock, calls all the more for the watchful pilot's care. Each danger is of a double kind; but, emerging from our metaphor, we will at once plainly state the actual dangers to which we allude.

They have sole reference to the degrees of pecuniary remuneration, and of credit or blame that are bestowed on the crews of life-boats, in return for the important services which, frequently at imminent risk to their own lives, they perform in the interest of their fellow-creatures.

Now, at first thought, it may not unnaturally be felt that the danger can only here lie on one side, and that it would be impossible to over-estimate or over-remunerate such services, for what higher act can a man perform than to risk his life to save that of another ? It is, however, precisely because we estimate at their highest value the splendid, the heroic services of many of oar lifeboats' crews, that we desire to eliminate from them, so far as practicable, the dross of mercenary motive, and to hold forth to the men, as far as possible, the pure, unalloyed gold of disinterestedness and self-devotion, that we include amongst the dangers to be avoided the bestowal of an indiscriminate or exaggerated amount of award, either of a pecuniary or laudatory nature. The subject, however, requires delicate handling.

We will first consider the question of pecuniary payments. Before the NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION seriously undertook the work of surrounding the coasts of our country with life-boats, and superintending their future management, it was a common complaint amongst the sea-coast boatmen, that they met with no encouragement from other classes to induce them to risk their lives in endeavouring to save those of shipwrecked sailors. An uniform scale of payment was, however, then established by the Institution for its life-boats' crews, viz., 10s.

per man for each occasion of proceeding to the aid" of a wrecked crew in the daytime, and II. each by night; double and even fourfold payments being given for extraordinary services.

Without wishing these payments to be looked on as equivalents to serious risk of.