Marriage
was always recommended to the missionaries of the Baptist Societies, and
Williams's fate was no sooner decided than he chose Mary Channer, a
constant attendant at the Tabernacle, and a woman helpful, kind, and
brave, as befitted a missionary's wife.

A great meeting was soon after held, as a sort of dedication of the new
labourers, nine in number, who were thence to go forth,--five to South
Africa, four to Polynesia. Among the Africans was Robert Moffat, a name
memorable, both on his own account and as the father-in-law of
Livingstone. An elderly minister stood forth and questioned the young
men in the face of the congregation on their faith, their opinions, their
motives, and their intentions; and then a Bible was solemnly presented to
each by an elder minister, John Angell James, of Birmingham, one of the
most able and highly reputed Nonconformists then living; and another
minister, Dr. Waugh, addressing himself to Williams, who was much the
youngest of the nine, said, "Go, my dear young brother, and if your
tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth, let it be with telling poor
sinners the love of JESUS CHRIST; and if your arms drop from their
shoulders, let it be with knocking at men's hearts to gain admittance for
Him there."

The impression never left John Williams, and the injunction was fulfilled
to the utmost of his power. He was a man of strong and vigorous frame,
well fitted to encounter the perils of climate; and with much enterprise,
hardihood, and ingenuity. That his mind was in some degree narrowed by
want of education, perhaps mattered less in the peculiar field of his
labours, where he was seldom brought in contact with wide questions. He
had the excellent quality of ready sympathy and adaptability to the
persons around him, whether civilized or savage, and was so good-natured
and yielding in unimportant matters, that the strength and firmness with
which he would stand up for whatever he viewed as a matter of conscience,
always took his opponents by surprise; but it was always long before this
point was reached, and he was perhaps too ready to give up when it was
judgment rather than right and wrong that came into play. Williams's
face, as given in the portrait attached to his "History of Missionary
Enterprise in the South Sea," curiously agrees with his history. There
is much power about the brow, much enterprise in the strong, somewhat
aquiline nose, great softness and sweetness in the e