DUBIXG the war our life-boat men were condemned by some people because they rescued those, who (in the opinion of certain folk) should have been left to perish. Some of these angry people wrote letters to the papers to ask why the men who had come over to bomb us, should be saved from the sea. When this Life-boat Service, of which we are all so proud, was founded about one hundred and thirty years ago, it pledged itself to go to the rescue of all in peril on the sea around the shores of Britain with- out distinction of race, and to do this in peace and in war. The Life-boat Service is at the command of any human beings needing its aid. Had that pledge been broken, even under the provocation of bombing, should we in this country have had for the Service the respect we have? No, we should not.

It is not only the courage displayed that we admire so much, but the fact that the Life-boat Service stands for an ideal. In a dark, menacing world it has never wavered in its carrying out of the Christian teaching of the brotherhood of man. Vast numbers of us give lip service to that ideal, but taking the world as a whole there is not much sign that races, nations, religions or Churches, regard those of other races, nations, religions and Churches as brothers. They may say they do, but "actions speak louder than words." The men of the Life- boat Service say little, but they act as though all men are their brothers.

The Service is a moral lighthouse sending out its radiance over stormy seas that threaten to overcome us all.

This is one very important reason for our enormous respect for it, and it is a reason that is not mentioned as often as it ought to be.

*From an article on the Life-boat Service in The Qnirer, reproduced by very kind permission of ite author, Mrs. Ruth Harrison, and the editor..