A SINGULAR COINCIDENCE.* ["A curious and interesting coincidence has been communicated to me by Capt. McK-ERLiE, of the Coastguard, Stranraer. The Edinburgh life-boat, it may be remembered, was exhibited in Glasgow on the 16th Dec., 1866. The wife of the captain of the Strasitieven, accompanied by her children, went to see the boat, and put an offering into the subscription-box. Exactly one year after, on the 16th Dec., 1867, the captain's vessel was by the very contributed to support.—E. M.

Ox the 16th of December, 1866, there was to be seen in Glasgow, near the Broomielaw, a life-boat named the Edinburgh and B. M. Battantyne. It bore this composite title—only, perhaps, to be matched by that of " Mr. Ten-thousand-topsail-sheet-blocks" —because the working men of the Scotch capital had clubbed their money to build it, and had then wished to associate with its services the honoured name of the author of the " Life-boat." There it was, however, name and all, on show at Glasgow; and suspended also upon the wall, in the place of exhibition, was a money-box for the contributions of those visitors who should call in to look at the " boatie," and should wish to lend a hand towards completing her outfit, and providing to keep her afloat. Among the number of such as came to aee the little craft before she went to her station at Port Logan, on the Wigtonshire coast, was the wife of the captain of the Glasgow barque Strathleven, accompanied by her children.

A. sailor's wife and a sailor's little ones would naturally look at the boat with other feelings than those of a landsman's household.

One can imagine how she would tell her small companions of the awful scene, when the ship comes upon the cruel rocks, and the bilge grinds, and the masts lash like a whip, and crack, and go over the sides, and the grey and white seas sweep the deck; while there is no hope for the crew unless a boat like this be nigh at hand. And then the thought would and did come, " If ' father' were ever in such a strait, and his life were hanging on the gallant strokes of the life-boat men as they fought with the winds and waves to save him !" Whereat the heart of the sailor's wife sent her hand to her pocket purse, and one of the little ones was hoisted " aloft" to drop something kind and helpful into the box for the fund of the Edinburgh and .K. M. Bcdlantyne life-boat. A simple incident enough, the public will say. But * From the Daily Telegraph.

exactly a year afterwards, on the 16th of December, 1867, a barque, with a captain and crew of fourteen men aboard, was caught in the cold wild weather off the Wigtonshire coast, and driven upon the rocks. The I situation of the men was desperate: the vessel would soon break up; the fifteen souls, who clung about the rigging, knew that, unless they were quickly seen by the j watchers at some life-boat station, their fate | must be death. Happily they were seen, I and very soon the captain of the Strathleven observed the boat coming; for the vessel was none other than the Glasgow barque, and the captain was the husband of the kindly lady who had gone to visit the Edinburgh and R. M. Ballantyne, and had helped to set the craft at its work. But that was not all the marvel of the strange coincidence. When the life-boat warped alongside, and took the fifteen helpless mariners safe off the wreck and out of the jaws of death, she proved to be none other than the Port Logan boat, with that sesquipedalian and well-remembered name painted on the stern-sheets. And so, when the captain of the Strathleven came to his home safe and sound, instead of drifting a corpse out into the rolling North Sea, with all his ship's company, he had to tell his glad and happy spouse, and that tiny public who had heard " Mother's " little lecture upon life-boats, that on the very same day of the year on which they gave their monev for love and charity to the boat, that self-same boat had saved him from death, and sent him alive and grateful to their arms.

Not once in a million times shall we see good deeds thus visibly and directly rewarded.

If sailors' wives could buy the lives of their dear ones so, how full the boxes of the life-boats would be! Of course this is only what we call a " coincidence;" and mathematicians, given the data of the problem, would tell us how many almost infinite chances to one it was against such an extraordinary interest being paid by Providence upon such a principal. But in this world there is no " coincidence" and no " chance "—these are but names for effects whereof the causes are rendered inscrutable by their number and complexity. We may really take the children's view—the poet's view—the fairy-story book's view of such a lovely piece of "accident," and be very many times nearer to the truth than the mathematicians. For that ancient Greek said a good and a true thing when he wrote, " The Fates sell everything at a fair price." Here, in this " coincidence," we almost catch the Divine administration of good for good and evil for evil; the Destinies— chapmen of Heaven's compensations and most just bargains—sitting at their " receipt of custom," busy with the golden scales wherein all our deeds and words and thoughts are weighed and paid for. What was it that the Scotch lady's silver actually furnished ? what connected the first shining link of pity and womanly feeling and wifely yearning, with the last link of manly gallantry and timely service at the other end of the chain of events ? Tf we knew all, as the angels know it, should we know enough ? should we see that the very coin dropped into the box paid for a halliard or a tow-line which had to do with the rescue; or for a spare rowlock which saved a vital minute in starting; or for something or other which somehow led, with fifty thousand consenting causes, directly to this beautiful issue? Or if we looked with angel eyes, should we see greater wonders far than lucky halliards or tow-lines, or timely rowlocks? should we see that the human love and pity which prompted the gift of the mother and children are really vast and potent forces, passing forth into the world like commissioned influences— subtler than the most ethereal of the imponderable elements; infinite in power and result, like all force; contributions, for ever and ever, to the growing eternity of good— which must and will bear their fruit of blessed ripening, to scatter, in tura, for ever, fresh seeds of fresh fruits ? Had we angel eyes, we might believe, as the children believe, that these emitted forces of sweet and noble thought and wish were angels too; and we might see a very marvellous spectacle, in the Strathleven drifting upon her fate amid the rocks. To ordinary vision she was a doomed ship, drifting helplessly, with no hope for the poor souls on board but " chance " and the luck of the lead-fall.

To the opened wiser sight she was a lovely and glorious spectacle! for though the ship must perish, at the helm the wife's embodied gift of mercy stands like an angel, smiling, and beckoning the lost bark to the right spot for her grave; and at the lifeboat station the children's innocent pity for poor sailors, soft and fair in form, and visible, stoops at the ear of the look-out man, and whispers words of guidance.

There is a Norse legend, ranch to the point, of a bad Viking, who cruelly used a peasant woman, and as she died she gave her sister three long golden hairs from her head to have them woven, into the Viking's hempen cables. He was caught in a storm, and cast anchor to try to "ride it out; but as soon as he veered his tackle to ease the galley, and brought the strain upon the bights wherein the golden hairs were woven, the hawsers cracked one after another, and the galley went ashore, and the bad Viking was miserably drowned. Shall such a fable, with a modern tail-piece to it like the Glasgow life-boat box, be called mere folly? The evil and the good are verily both sold and bought at a fair price " by the Fates." We can none of us quote the market tariff, nor follow the sublime exactitude of that one and only perfect law of " supply and demand;" but whether the golden hairs of the Norse girl could break the cables, and whether the chain of events was direct and inevitable between the aid to the life-boat' and the aid from the life-boat, this is sure: that no good deed or word in all the world is without payment, and no ill deed or ill word without penalty. These '' Fates who buy and sell so fair " have the universe for, their shop, and eternity wherein to balance accounts; their auditor is " Omniscience," their collecting clerk " Omnipresence;" and Justice,—utter, infinite, unfailing justice,—is the commercial code which rules their business.

Here, for once, in the Glasgow story, we well nigh detect them " at office " in.

their great counting-house, paying over the.

counter the superb, the lavish interest which good deeds always bring. But does any man think, if the Captain of the Strathleven had been drowned, with all hands, as he came back in the life-boat which his wife helped to launch, that her .charity would on that account have been mocked or forgotten: in Heaven ? No ! these equitable Fates on the Great Bourse of Good and Evil cash cheques and honour drafts in many other banks besides this poor " bank and shoal of time." No good dies, and no evil survives.

All the forces of the infinite universe, from this speck of it to that unseen vast sun round which Sirius moves, are on the side of noble deed or word ; and all the invisible police of the intense eternity of life are equipped to lay hands on evil, and chastise 't out of existence. In the gingham mill, as EMERSON writes, a broken thread or a scamped warp spoils the web through a piece of a hundred yards, and is traced back to the spinner, and docks his wages. " A day is a more magnificent cloth than any muslin;" and, while we weave our lives,.

Heaven pays the wages gloriously for true and loving work, and will not be cheated of one inch of the task which we were set to do, by the selfish faults or bad acts and thoughts that we slip into the purple tapestry of life, while, as we think, no eye is. noting our misdeed..