sted and gnarled as
if they had been made of wire.

The hardy men of Deal were still out in those powerful boats, that seem
to be capable of bidding defiance to most storms, saving property to the
nation, and earning--hardly earning--salvage for themselves. The
lifeboats, too, were out,--in some cases saving life, in others, saving
property when there were no lives in danger.

How inadequate are our conceptions of these things when formed from a
written account of one or two incidents, even although these be
graphically described! How difficult it is to realise the actual scenes
that are presented all along the coast during and immediately after each
great storm that visits our shores.

If we could, by the exercise of supernatural power, gaze down at these
shores as from a bird's-eye point of view, and take them in, with all
their stirring incidents, at one glance; if we could see the wrecks,
large and small--colliers with their four or five hands; emigrant ships
with their hundreds of passengers--beating and grinding furiously on
rocks that appear to rise out of and sink into a sea of foam; if we
could witness our lifeboats, with their noble-hearted crews, creeping
out of every nook and bay in the very teeth of what seems to be
inevitable destruction; if we could witness the hundred deeds of
individual daring done by men with bronzed faces and rough garments, who
carry their lives habitually in their hands, and think nothing of it; if
we could behold the flash of the rockets, and hear the crack of the
mortars and the boom of minute guns from John o' Groat's to the Land's
End, at the dead and dark hours of night, when dwellers in our inland
districts are abed, all ignorant, it may be, or thoughtless, in regard
to these things; above all, if we could hear the shrieks of the
perishing, the sobs and thanksgivings of the rescued, and the wild
cheers of the rescuers; and hear and see all this at one single glance,
so that our hearts might be more filled than they are at present with a
sense of the terrible dangers of our shores, and the heroism of our men
of the coast, it is probable that our prayers for those who "go down to
the sea in ships" would be more frequent and fervent, and our respect
for those who risk life and limb to save the shipwrecked would be
deeper. It is also probable that we might think it worth our while to
contribute more largely than we do to the support of that noble
Institution whose work it is