is ship has sailed another way.
The birds are crying for Viriamu,
Long time is he in coming.
Will he ever come again?
Will he ever come again?"

It was some time before he could come again; for, after eighteen years of
unremitting labour in the isles of Raiatea and Rarotonga, and of voyages
touching on many other isles, he had made up his mind to visit England.

He came home in 1834, and remained about four years, doing much for his
cause by his personal narratives and vivid accounts of the people to whom
he had devoted his life. Curiously enough, his son, now a youth of
twenty, was introduced to Earl Fitzwilliam's gardener, who proved to have
been one of the mission party who had been captured in the _Duff_ on the
second voyage, and who was delighted to hear of the wonderful progress of
the cause from which he himself had been turned back.

A subscription was raised for the purchase of a mission ship, exceeding
in size and suitability such craft as could be purchased or hired in
Australia; and the _Camden_, a vessel admirably fitted for the purpose,
was obtained and equipped at a cost of 2,600_l._, the command of her
given to Captain Morgan, who was well experienced in the navigation of
the Polynesian seas, and had, moreover, such a reputation for piety, that
the natives termed his vessel "the praying ship."

In this vessel a large reinforcement of missionaries was taken out,
including a married pair for Samoa, and likewise young John Williams, who
had found himself an English wife; but his little brother was left at
home for education. The intention of Williams was to station the
missionaries upon the friendly isles, and himself circulate among them in
the _Camden_, breaking fresh ground in yet unvisited isles, and
stationing first native and then English teachers, as they were prepared
for them.

Among the Samoans he remained a good while. He estimated the population
at 60,000, of whom nearly 50,000 were under instruction. Several places
of worship were opened with feasts, at which huge hecatombs of swine were
consumed--1,370 at one festival. One young chief under instruction
became so good a preacher, that Williams called him the Whitfield of
Samoa; and these islands have, under the training then set on foot,
furnished many a missionary and even martyr to the isles around, and are,
to the present day, one of the happiest specimens of the effects of
missionary labour.