In the preceding pages, the subject of these memoirs has been chiefly seen in but one aspect. Widely as the scenes, through which we have accompanied him, differ from each other, and various as are the incidents which diversify them, hitherto we have contemplated Mr. Williams principally as the devoted and enterprising labourer in the missionary field. But we have now to follow him into new and untrodden paths. Instead of visiting hordes of savage men, or standing up to announce the elementary truths of the gospel to rude or but half-enlightened multitudes, over whom his mental ascendancy was great and manifest, he was called to plead the cause of missions before well-instructed assemblies, and from some of the most commanding positions in Britain. And he fully appreciated the change in his circumstances. Often before he left Polynesia, and with still stronger solicitude during his voyage to England, had his mind rested upon the future, and rarely without mingled emotions of pain and pleasure, of confidence and concern. While, on the one hand, he felt assured that the intelligence of which he was the bearer, would, if but fairly laid before the Christian public, command their attention, rejoice their hearts, and impart a new impulse to their efforts for the world's evangelization, the self-reliance, which in other situations had raised him above the most formidable difficulties, or carried him triumphantly through them, now almost forsook him; and he surveyed his new sphere of duty “with fear and with much trembling.”