THE following graphic account of a recent noble service performed by the Ramsgate Life-boat is extracted from a work just published, entitled "Storm Warriors."* We hail the appearance of this interesting book with considerable satisfaction.

Mr. GILMORE has on many an occasion grasped the hands of the hardy Life-boat men when they have returned to shore freighted with shipwrecked crews, rescued oft-times from the jaws of death, on the fatal Good win Sands; while we have almost at the same moment been made acquainted.f by means of the electric flash, with their noble deeds; and these have been woven into thrilling accounts by Mr. GILMORE.

He has gathered the materials for his volume from the lips of the gallant men themselves; and thus the great work in which the NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION has been engaged for fifty years is brought home with increased interest to the breast of each one of us.

As is well known, in 1850, mainly through the liberality of Admiral ALGERNON Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND, the present plan of Self-righting Life-boat was first practically developed. Two of those self- righting boats have been stationed at Ramsgate; and it is some of their .noble work which Mr. GILMORE describes with •such unabated interest.

The Duke's widow, ELEANOR Duchess of NORTHUMBERLAND, writing to Mr. LEWIS on the 7th January, said: " What a book * " Storm Warriors; or, Life-Boat Work on the Good- win Sands." By the Rev. John GILMORE, M.A., Rector of Holy Trinity, Ramsgate, author of " The Ramsgate Life- Boat " in " Macmillan's Magazine." Crown 8vo. 6s. Pub- lished by Messrs. MACMILLAN and Co., and to be had, by order, from all booksellers.

f We are indebted to the cordial co-operation of Capt. BRAINE, the active Harbour Master at Ramsgate, for such information.

of thrilling interest is that on the ' Storm Warriors' which you have so kindly sent to me! It is impossible to read unmoved tales of such true heroism; and when reading aloud some portions of it to a lady, I could hardly go on. It is a work that ought to be extensively circulated; and I will do my best to make it known." We truly echo the Duchess's sentiments, for we feel assured that such books as these are well calculated to excite our youth of all conditions to deeds of daring and acts of self-denial:— And now, as I write the concluding lines of my book, the reality of the work related is deeply impressed upon my mind, for this morning my two little boys came running down stairs making the house ring with their cries of " The Life- boat! the Life-boat!" they had seen it from their nursery window. Yes, there she was, being towed by the steamer, the rough seas lashing over her; her flag was flying in triumph. I could see through my glass that there were about a dozen saved men on board the steamer, and, as I have since learned, seldom have men more narrowly escaped than did those poor fellows, and seldom have men been saved by a greater exhibition of courage and perseverance than was displayed by our Life-boat men while effecting their rescue.

The Scott, a barque of 345 tons, bound from Sunderland to Algiers with a cargo of coals, after experiencing much stormy and thick weather, ran on the Kentish Knock Sands, at five o'clock in the morning; the seas immediately began to break over her; the carpenter sounded the well and found two feet and a half of water in her hold, but as the waves lifted her and plunged her down upon the Sands, she filled at once with water. The captain sent the steward into the cabin for the ship's papers; he found the water up to the cabin floor; he seized the box in which the papers were, and ran up on deck; a wave rushed over the vessel and swept him along the deck; he caught bold of a rope with one hand, but one of the sailors, overwhelmed by the same wave, threw his legs around his neck and nearly tore him from his hold; the wave passed and the two men were enabled to spring into the rigging, all hands had to take refuge there, for within five minutes of the vessel's striking she began to break up; the boats were washed away, the deck- house was torn to fragments and carried away piecemeal; the deck began to twist, and buckle, and open, and then was speedily ripped up by the force of the seas, and torn away plank after plank. The vessel broke her back and heeled over on the starboard side, and settled down upon the Sands; the men could not make any signal of distress, and if they could have done so, they were miles away from any Life-boat, and at any moment the masts might give, and they be plunged into the boiling sea. If the weather moderated, some passing vessel might see them, and be able to send a boat in to their rescue, but not while the gale lasted. The day grew on; many vessels passed the Sands, but not near enough to be able to make out the men in the rigging of the masts, which were only just above water; the weather grew worse and worse, the day was wearing away, and the night coming on—it was all very, very hopeless! At last a brig passed nearer to them than any other vessels had come; the mate said, " If they are looking at the wreck with a good glass, they may, perhaps, see us," and he stood up and waved to them. At that moment, most providentially, the pilot on board the vessel looked at the wreck through a glass, and saw the mate waving, his sou'-wester cap. The brig soon after spoke a smack that was making in for the land, and the smack proceeded to Broadstairs and reported a wreck on the Kentish Knock, with the crew in the rigging, and that a Life-boat was wanted for their rescue, for that no ordinary boat could live through the sea that was running over the Sands.

At Broadstairs they felt that their own boat could never get there in time without the assistance of a steamer, and they telegraphed to Ramsgate. It was about six o'clock in the evening, the steamer Aid, with READING in command and the Life-boat Bradford, with FISH as coxswain, and 11. GOLD- SMITH as second coxswain, at once made their way out into the gale and tremendous sea to the rescue of the shipwrecked crew.

In the meantime the poor fellows on board the wreck waited on almost in despair, the ship each moment yielding to the force of the storm till the whole deck was washed away, and the masts were working more and more loose; happily she had wire rigging, which stood the heavy swaying and lurching oi the masts better than the ordinary rope rigging would have done.

It was piteous in talking to the men to hear them describe the condition of utter despair that they were in, and how little ground they could find for any hope whatever ; piteous to hear the captain say, " There were just two planks of the deck left floating entangled in a rope, and I kept watching them, thinking that if the mast went I would try and swim to them, and float on them for the chance of being picked up by some vessel," to hear the mate answer, " But I was just watching them, too, with the same idea," and the carpenter adds, " That was just the plan I had in my mind." And thus the ten men clung to the rigging and to each other, standing on the small crosstrees of one tottering mast, hour after hour. The day passed, still no signs of rescue—it became quite dark—it seemed impossible that they could ever see another day's dawn.

They might perish at any moment!—at any moment!—and all ten of them. This was the conviction of each one. They told me how end- less the dark hours of that terrible night seemed; and one man said, " That the thought that seemed ever present with him, was the bitter way that his little boy sobbed and cried when he bid him good- bye, and how he would cry again when he heard that ' Dadda was gone!'" At last there was a streak ef dawn, but the mast had fallen over almost to a level with the water and seemed still yielding rapidly; they might see the sunrise again, but that was all; when one of the sailors cried out, " A steamer! what good can that be to us ?" and they watch her without interest, for there seems little chance of her coming in their direction. " Ah ! she ia running down the edge of the Sands, and comes nearer, and nearer! Well, she can't help us if she does ; no boat can come across the Sands to us in this surf—no! no !" Shortly a man cries," She has a large boat in tow; what! perhaps a Life-boat! it may be that some passing vessel made us out yesterday and has sent a Life-boat." Oh what a thought of hope, of joy, of life! "Can it be so? It is—it is! Thank God, it is—it is! Look, she has left the steamer, and is coming in through the breakers straight towards us!" It is something to remember, the way in which one man said to me, as if almost unnerved by the remembrance, " Oh what a beauty she looked! what a beauty she looked, coming over those seas! " The steamer and Life-boat had got out to the Sands after battling with the storm for a distance of twenty-six miles. At about 11 o'clock the night before, they spoke the Lightship on the Kentish Knock, and learnt the bearings of the wreck; but they found that it was impossible to discover her in the darkness of the night and storm, so after several vain efforts they lay to. until the morning.

As soon as it was light they went in search of the wreck, and the Life-boat made in across the Sands, and it was then truly a great matter of heartfelt congratulation to the Life-boat men that all their labour and perseverance had not been in vain, for to their great joy they could see the crew in the rigging. They anchored the boat as near to the wreck as they could venture, and then let the cable veer out until the boat was under the vessel's jib- boom. It was low tide; the seas were not break- ing over the wreck so violently as they had been, and the men were able to work their way out on to the bowsprit, and drop into the boat, and thus the ten men were saved, after being twenty-six hours holding on in the maintop of the wreck.

The flood-tide was just making; all felt that as soon as it rose and the wreck began to heave and work again, the mast would speedily go, and they realized to the full that they had only been saved just in time.

The Life-boat returned to the steamer as speedily as possible, and put the rescued men on board her. The shipwrecked men had not tasted anything for nearly thirty-six hours, as it was before breakfast time that they had run ashore, and they had been in the rigging for twenty-six hours. The Life-boat got back to the harbour at 11 o'clock in the morning; the Life-boat men had been in the open boat, exposed to all the fury of the storm, for nearly seventeen hours, and their exhaustion was very great. The kindness of some friends provided the weary and famished men with a good dinner at the house of their old comrade and friend, J ABM AN, and soon after a telegram came from Mr. LEWIS, of the Life-boat Institution, to whom tidings of the rescue had been telegraphed, that the Life-boat men were to have a sovereign each and a good dinner ;* but by that time they were all resting at home after their long hours of fatigue. Other friends made recognition by subscription, of their noble services; and com- fort was thus carried into the homes of our " Storm Warriors " after their gallant and triumphant efforts in saving life.

The shipwrecked men were cared for in our Sailors' Home, and speedily recovered their fatigues. The Captain told me he did not think they would have been alive one hour longer if the Life-boat had not come just when she did; and, speaking of the Life-boat, said, with deep feeling, " Oh! she is a noble boat, and nobly manned; there could not be a kinder set of men.'