By the Rev. WILBERFORCE ROBINS, Honorary Secretary of the Seaton Branch.

Mr. Robins, who became the honorary secretary of the Seaton branch last year, has an association of nearly fifty years with the life-boat service. He was on the executive committee of the Life-boat Saturday Fund in 1896, and when the Fund was dissolved in 1911, and its organization taken over by the Institu- tion, he received the Institution's thanks inscribed on vellum. He was the Coast- guard Chaplain at Dungeness from 1889- 1892, and a volunteer member of the New Romney life-boat crew. In 1891 he received the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum for going out in the New Romney life-boat on the service to the " jEolus," which he describes in this article.

Two anniversaries, many years apart, are recorded above, both of which fall on the same date, in the same month.

Further, the same numbers make the year, though in a different formation—• in its way a remarkable coincidence.

The second date is of the signing of the Armistice; the other, not remembered except by a few, will recall to them memories of the Great Storm, which swept England, and particularly the Kentish coast, on November llth, 1891, when there was great loss of shipping, much heroic life-boat work accom- plished, and some life-boatmen made the great sacrifice.

November llth commemorates once again the signing of the Armistice, and the end, so far as fighting was con- cerned, of the most murderous and cruel war in all the annals of the world.

Eighteen years have passed away since the bells of heaven and earth rang for joy announcing Armistice, yet to-day humanity is still longing for peace in the hearts of men. Armistice comes to us each year to remind us of what a hell some of us passed through, and to remind us of those who died that we might live, and in the hope that honour, right and love might rule mankind.

Now to dwell in a few words on the more distant anniversary forty-five years ago. Very vividly I recall to mind the stirring events of the llth November, 1891. There are no greater heroes amongst all the bravest of the brave than those who fearlessly risk their lives to save the shipwrecked mariner. The event which I am about to recall, and of which I was a personal witness, is only one of many enduring deeds of rescue performed by those who for over a hundred years have been willing workers in the service of the Royal National Life-boat Institution.

A Blizzard at Dungeness.

It was in the very early hours of the llth November, 1891, that the Nor- wegian brigantine Molus became a wreck on one of the many sandbanks off Dungeness, Kent. A south-easterly blizzard was blowing with hurricane force, and the day had hardly dawned when, with startling rapidity, the Lydd life-boat was launched and set out with its coastguard crew on its errand of mercy. Only those intimately acquainted with the Kentish coast know the dangers of the many sand- banks in the East Bay, Dungeness.

After battling with the furious elements for some hours the luckless life-boat herself struck one of these sandbanks, and capsized. Two of the crew failed to regain the boat and were drowned in the raging sea. The boat herself, with the other helpless occupants, was washed ashore farther down the coast.

The bodies of Jack Reeves and Harry Nicol were recovered in a battered condition, the sea in this instance giving up its dead, an unusual circumstance on that coast. Two splendid specimens of English manhood were Reeves and Nicol. Great-hearted men! None more willing than they to sacrifice their all for others in danger on the sea. A son of Nicol, a wee babe when his father was drowned, was in the King's Navy at the Battle of Jutland.

The day wore on, but the blinding blizzard had not ceased. The crew of the Norwegian ship could at times be discerned in the mizen mast, huddled together, fearful seas breaking over the vessel. They were not alone in their distress. There was the great ship, the Benvenue, ashore at Sandgatc, where the full force of the hurricane prevented, for many hours, any attempt to reach her. The Hythe life-boat was launched at Sandgate and, after a long struggle, was driven back. She was taken along the beach and launched a second time at Hythe. She was capsized before she got through the surf, and washed ashore. Of her gallant crew of twenty men, nineteen reached the shore. One man was drowned. Wonderful heroism was displayed by these Hythe men that day. Undaunted by their two failures or by fear of the death which had claimed one and from which the others had only just escaped, they put out yet a third tune, in the early part of the night and rescued the twenty-seven men still alive on the Benvenue, of her crew of thirty-two.

Three life-boatmen had lost their lives that day,' and five men of the Benvenue.

And that was not the whole tale of loss.

That same day, when the storm was at its height, Jack Philpotts (known as the father of the Deal men), in his pilot boat, was wrecked in the East Bay.

This grand old sailor and his entire crew, except one man, were carried away and drowned before help could reach them. He, too, was a typical Englishman and a fearless sailor, a man who knew no guile, with a heart like a child! New Romney to the Rescue.

So the day wore on, and it was four o'clock on this November afternoon when the coastguard and fishermen determined to make another attempt to reach the crew of the Norwegian vessel, the JEolus, who had been in the rigging, amid fearful cold and exposure, for some twelve hours. The storm still swept over sea and land, but the New Romney life-boat was launched in the blinding storm. After battling with the elements for what seemed an eternity, swept all the time by heavy seas, we eventually reached the sand- locked vessel. What a magnificent but awful sight it was ! The 'noise of the creaking timbers, the roar of the mad waves, the thunder of the storm were all deafening, but with wonderful skill, in which "Bio Tart," a notable Dungeness fisherman (now gone to his haven), took a prominent part, the whole crew, eight in number, were brought down into the life-boat just in time to save them from certain death, for the vessel soon afterwards broke up.

"Greater Love . . . ." " Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends." Jack Reeves, Harry Nicol and that life-boatman of Hythe had willingly sacrificed their lives that day, as many a life-boatman has done before and will do again. The experi- ence of their manhood, dearly bought in many struggles on stormy seas, they freely give in the noble work of rescue.

It is such men as these on sea and land who have made Britain what she is to-day. Let us tell of their deeds and recount the measure of their bravery to our children and children's children.

As once again we commemorate the courage and sacrifice of all our heroes in the Great War, as we remember, in the two minutes' silence on another Armistice Day, the long list of those who died, let us be determined to make this England of ours a land worthy of the noble deeds of sailors, and soldiers, alike, the men who loved not safety but danger, not self but service, who died that we might live.

Surely it is not in that land across the sea or in the ocean's depths that they will rest, but in our hearts always.

" In the morning, at noonday, and at the setting of the sun we will remember them.".