THE Life-boat Station at Pakefield, in Suffolk, which was established in 1840, was closed last year, and the Service Boards which hung in the Boat-house will find a permanent and honoured place in Pakefield Church, where a special service will be held when they are unveiled. In recent years a con- siderable number of Life-boat Stations have been closed, some because the changes in the coastal population made it no longer possible to find a crew, others because the stationing of powerful Motor Life-boats at neighbouring points on the coast made them no longer necessary.

More stations are likely to be closed in the next few years as the Motor Life-boat programme is carried out, and it is to be hoped that other places will follow Pakefield's fine example, and place in their churches the records of the courageous services of their Life-boat crews.

It is a custom which we should like to see become general. In the church, most fitly, would hang these records of courageous and devoted services, to remain there as a permanent reminder to all who come after of one of the activities of their village or town in which they should take the greatest ! pride, and as a permanent inspiration to noble and unselfish work.

' In this connexion it may be recalled ' that a copy of "William "Wouldhave's | model Life-boat, made in 1789, from : which, although with considerable altera- ' tions, the first Life-boat was built, still hangs in St. Hilda's Church, South Shields, and a model Life-boat used to hang, and doubtless still hangs, in South- wold Church.

We would recommend these ideas to all who are interested in the Life-boat Service. They are ideas also which could be extended in many ways, and the Institution will be glad to receive any similar suggestions which the Hono- [rary Secretaries of Branches or other I Life-boat workers can make for identify- ing the work of the Institution, not only on the coast, but also in inland towns, with the religious and civic life of the community. There could be no more appropriate time than the present for making and carrying out such sugges- tions, since we are now drawing very near the end of our first century, and hope to start the second with the Life- boat Service more closely and consciously i associated than ever before with the whole life of the people..