The want of extended views in good Mr. Williams was shown in his manner
of regarding the expected arrival of some Roman Catholic priests in the
Polynesian seas. He set to work to translate Foxe's "Book of Martyrs,"
and begged that a present offered him for his people might be expended in
slides illustrating it for a beautiful magic lantern which he already
possessed, and whose Scripture scenes drew tears from the natives. He
had not Church knowledge enough to rise above the ordinary popular view
of "Popery," and did not understand its Christianity enough to see the
evils of sowing the bitterest seeds of the Protestant controversy among
scarcely reclaimed heathens.

On their side, the Roman Catholics would have done better to enter on
untrodden ground, of which there was such an infinity, than to force
themselves where, if they did not find their Church, at least they found
faith in the Saviour. But the Society Isles were coveted, for political
reasons, by the existing French Government, and the struggle was there
beginning, of which Mr. Williams was not destined to see the unfortunate
conclusion.

Raiatea he found much improving; and at Rarotonga civilization had made
such progress, that the chiefs house was two storeys high, with ten
bedrooms, and good furniture made in imitation of English, and any linen
Mr. Williams left in his room was immediately washed, ironed, and laid
ready for use. Much of the lurking heathenism was giving way, and fair
progress being made in religious feeling, when, after a stay in Samoa,
where Mrs. Williams now chiefly resided, John Williams set out on an
exploring voyage in the _Camden_.

Strangely enough, his last text in preaching to the Samoans was,
"Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see
his face no more;" and the people, who always grieved whenever he left
them, wept as bitterly at the words as if they had known them to be an
omen. He was bent on an attempt on the heathen isle of Erromango, which
his wife viewed with a foreboding terror, that made her in vain try to
extract a promise from him not to land there.

But he viewed the New Hebrides as an important link, leading perhaps to
reaching the Papuan race in New Guinea. He hoped to gain a footing
there, and make the spot such a centre as Tahiti, Raiatea, Rarotonga, and
Samoa had successively been; and, as the _Camden_ glided along the shores
of the island, he talked of his schemes, and of