The early part of November, 1867, the Mateers lived “half in the old and

half in the new.” On November 21 they finally moved. That was Saturday.

In the night there came up a fierce storm of snow and wind. When they

awoke on Sabbath morning, the kitchen had been filled with snow through

a door that was blown open. The wind still blew so hard that the stove

in the kitchen smoked and rendered cooking impossible. The stair door

had not yet been hung, and the snow drifted into the hall and almost

everywhere in the house. Stoves could not be set up, or anything else

done toward putting things in order, until Thursday, when the storm

abated.

But they were in their new house. It was only a plain, two-story, brick

building, with a roofed veranda to both stories and running across the

front, a hall in the middle of the house with a room on either side, and

a dining room and kitchen at the rear. Much of the walls is now covered

by Virginia creeper, wistaria, and climbing rose. It is one of those cozy

missionary dwellings which censorious travelers to foreign lands visit,

or look at from the outside; and then, returning to their own land, they

tell about them as evidence of the luxury by which these representatives

of the Christian churches have surrounded themselves. Yet if they cared

to know, and would examine, they would out of simple regard for the

truth, if for no other reason, testify to the necessity of such homes for

the health and efficiency of the missionaries, and as powerful indirect

helps in the work of social betterment among the natives; and they would

wonder at the self-sacrifice and economy and scanty means by which these

worthy servants of Christ have managed to make for themselves and their

successors such comfortable and tasteful places of abode.

[Illustration: TENGCHOW MISSION COMPOUND, FROM THE NORTH

Extreme left, Entrance to Dr. Hayes’ House. Behind this, part of back of

Dr. Mateer’s House. Foreground, Vegetable Gardens belonging to Chinese]

The Mateer house stands on the compound of the mission of the

Presbyterian Board, which is inside and close to the water gate in the

city wall. About it, as the years went by, were erected a number of other

buildings needed for various purposes. The whole, being interspersed with

trees, combines to make an attractive scene.

There was nothing pretentious about the house, but it was comfortable,

and suited to their wants; and it was all the more dear to them because

to such a large degree it had been literally built by themselves. Here

for more than thirty-one years Julia presided, and here she died. After

that Dr. Mateer’s niece, Miss Margaret Grier, took charge previous to

her marriage to Mason Wells, and continued for some years subsequent to

that event. To this house still later Dr. Mateer brought Ada, who was

his helpmeet in his declining years, and who still survives. This was

the home of Dr. Mateer from 1867 to 1904. It was in it and from it as a

center that he performed by far the larger part of his life work. Here

the Mandarin Revision Committee held its first meeting.

It was always a genuine home of the most attractive type. What that means

in a Christian land every reader can in a good degree understand; but

where all around is a mass of strange people, saturated with ignorance,

prejudice, and the debased morality consequent on idolatry, a people of

strange and often repulsive habits of living, the contrast is, as the

Chinese visitors often used to say, “the difference between heaven and

hell.” But what most of all made this little dwelling at Tengchow a home

in the truest sense was the love that sanctified it. Dr. Mateer used

in his later years frequently to say: “In the thirty-five years of our

married life, there never was a single jar.” Nor was this true because

in this sphere the one ruled, and the other obeyed; the secret of it was

that between husband and wife there was such complete harmony that each

left the other supreme in his or her department.

Here many visitors and guests received a welcome and an entertainment

to which such as survive still revert with evidently delightful

recollections. This seems to be preëminently true of some who were

children at the time when they enjoyed the hospitalities of that home.

Possibly some persons who have thought that they knew Dr. Mateer well,

may be surprised at the revelation thus made. One of those who has told

her experience is Miss Morrison, whose father was a missionary. He died

at Peking, and subsequently his widow and their children removed to one

of the southern stations of the Presbyterian Mission. It is of a visit to

this new home at Tengchow that Miss Morrison writes. She says:

Two of the best friends of our childhood were Dr. Calvin Mateer

and his brother John. We spent two summers at Dr. Mateer’s

home in Tengchow, seeking escape from the heat and malaria of

our more southern region. It could not have been an altogether

easy thing for two middle-aged people to take into their quiet

home four youngsters of various ages; but Dr. and Mrs. Mateer

made us very welcome, and if we disturbed their peace we never

knew it. I remember Mrs. Mateer as one of the most sensible and

dearest of women, and Dr. Mateer as always ready in any leisure

moment for a frolic. We can still recall his long, gaunt

figure, striding up and down the veranda, with my little sister

perched upon his shoulders and holding on by the tips of his

ears. She called him “the camel,” and I imagine that she felt

during her rides very much the same sense of perilous delight

that she would have experienced if seated on the hump of one

of the tall, shaggy beasts that we had seen swinging along,

bringing coal into Peking.

Dr. Mateer loved a little fun at our expense. What a beautiful,

mirthful smile lit up his rugged features when playing with

children! He had what seemed to us a tremendous ball,—I suppose

that it was a football,—which he used to throw after us. We

would run in great excitement, trying to escape the ball, but

the big, black thing would come bounding after us, laying us

low so soon as it reached us. Then with a few long steps he

would overtake us, and beat us with his newspaper till it was

all in tatters. Then he would scold us for tearing up his

paper. I remember not quite knowing whether to take him in

earnest, but being reassured so soon as I looked up into the

laughing face of my older sister.

Of other romps she also tells at length. Several old acquaintances

speak of his love of children, and of his readiness to enter into the

playfulness of their young lives. He dearly loved all fun of an innocent

sort; perhaps it is because of the contrast with his usual behavior that

so many persons seem to put special emphasis on this feature of his

character.

In those early days Pei-taiho in the north, and Kuling and Mokansan in

the south, had not been opened as summer resorts. Chefoo and Tengchow

were the only places available for such a purpose, and there were in

neither of them any houses to receive guests, unless the missionaries

opened theirs. Tengchow became very popular, on account of the beauty of

its situation, the comparative cleanness of the town, and the proximity

to a fine bathing beach. As a usual thing, if one mentions Tengchow

to any of the old missionaries, the remark is apt promptly to follow:

“Delightful place! I spent a summer there once with Dr. Mateer.”

Pleasant as he made his own home to his little friends, and to veterans

and recruits, he was equally agreeable in the homes of others who could

enter into his spheres of thought and activity. He was often a guest

in the house of Dr. Fitch and his wife at Shanghai, while putting his

books through the press. He was resident for months in the China Inland

Mission Sanitarium, and in the Mission Home at Chefoo. Dr. Fitch and his

wife, and Superintendent Stooke of the Home, tell with evident delight

of his “table talk,” and of other ways by which he won their esteem and

affection.

When the summer guests were flown from Tengchow, the missionaries were

usually the entire foreign community,—a condition of things bringing both

advantages and disadvantages as to their work. On the one hand, the cause

which they represented was not prejudiced by the bad lives of certain

foreigners coming for commercial or other secular purposes from Christian

lands. On the other hand, they were left without things that would have

ministered immensely to their convenience and comfort, and which they

often sadly needed for their own efficiency, and for their health and

even for their lives. This was largely due to the tedious and difficult

means of communication with the outside world. For instance, it was

six weeks until the goods which the Mateers left behind them at Chefoo

were delivered to them at Tengchow. Letters had to be carried back and

forth between Tengchow and Chefoo, the distributing point, by means of

a private courier. When, by and by, the entire band joined together and

hired a carrier to bring the mail once a week, this seemed a tremendous

advance. The cost of a letter to the United States was forty-five cents.

But the most serious of all their wants was competent medical attention.

How Mateer wrote home, and begged and planned, and sometimes almost

scolded, about sending a physician to reinforce their ranks! In the

meantime they used domestic remedies for their own sick, or sent them

overland to Chefoo, or in case of dire necessity brought up a physician

from that city. Mateer soon found himself compelled to attempt what he

could medically and surgically for himself and wife, and also for others,

and among these the poor native sufferers. One of his early cases was

a terribly burnt child whom he succeeded in curing; and another was a

sufferer from lockjaw, who died in spite of all he could do; and still

another case was of a woman with a broken leg. He tried his hand at

pulling a tooth for his associate, Mr. Mills, but he had to abandon the

effort, laying the blame on the miserable forceps with which he had to

operate. Later he could have done a better job, for he provided himself

with a complete set of dental tools, not only for pulling teeth and for

filling them, but also for making artificial sets. All of these he often

used. On his first furlough he attended medical lectures at Philadelphia

and did a good deal of dissection. A closet in the new house held a stock

of medicines, and by administering them he relieved much suffering, and

saved many lives, especially in epidemics of cholera. The physicians

who, in response to the appeals of the missionaries, were first sent to

the station at Tengchow did not remain long; and for many years the most

of the medicine administered came out of the same dark closet under the

stairs of “the New Home.”

VI

HIS INNER LIFE

“I am very conscious that we here are not up to the standard

that we ought to be, and this is our sin. We pray continually

for a baptism from on high on the heathen round us; but we need

the same for ourselves that we may acquit ourselves as becomes

our profession. Our circumstances are not favorable to growth

either in grace or in mental culture. Our only associates are

the native Christians, whose piety is often of a low type; it

receives from us, but imparts nothing to us. Mentally we are

left wholly without the healthy stimulus and the friction of

various and superior minds which surround men at home. Most

whom we meet here are mentally greatly our inferiors, and there

is no public opinion that will operate as a potent stimulus

to our exertions. It may be said that these are motives of a

low kind. It may be so; but their all-powerful influence on

all literary men at home is scarcely known or felt till the

absence of them shows the difference.”—LETTER TO THE SOCIETY OF

INQUIRY, IN THE WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, October 1, 1867.

We have now reached a stage in this narration where the order of time can

no longer be followed, except in a very irregular manner. We must take

up distinct phases of Mateer’s life and work, as separate topics, and so

far as practicable consider each by itself. This is not at all because

in him there was any lack of singleness of aim or of persistence. This

man, from the time when he began his labors in China until he finished

his course, without interruption, put his strength and personality

into the evangelization of the people of that great empire. But in

doing this he found it necessary to follow along various lines, often

contemporaneously, though never out of sight of any one of them. For

our purpose it is best that to some extent they should be considered

separately.

But before we proceed further it appears desirable to seek an

acquaintance with his inner life. By this I do not mean his native

abilities, or his outward characteristics as these were known and read by

all men who came much into contact with him. It is from the soul life,

and especially the religious side of it, that it seems desirable to

lift the veil a little. This in the case of anyone is a delicate task,

and ought to be performed with a good deal of reserve. In the instance

now in hand there is special difficulty. Mateer never, either in speech

or in writing, was accustomed to tell others much about his own inward

experiences. For a time in his letters and in his Journal he occasionally

breaks over this reticence a little; but on November 27, 1876, he made

the last entry in the Journal; and long before this he had become so

much occupied with his work that he records very little concerning his

soul life. Still less had he to say on that subject in his letters;

and as years went by, his occupations compelled him to cut off as much

correspondence as practicable, and to fill such as he continued with

other matters. Nothing like completeness consequently is here undertaken

or is possible.

A notion that is current, especially among “men of the world,” is that a

missionary is almost always a sentimental dreamer who ignores the stern

realities of life. It has been my work to train a good many of those who

have given themselves to this form of Christian service, and to have a

close acquaintance with a good many more; and I cannot now recall one of

whom such a characteristic could be honestly affirmed. I have in mind a

number of whom almost the opposite is true. Certainly if to carry the

gospel into the dark places of the earth with the conviction of its

ultimate triumph is to be called dreaming, then every genuine missionary

is a sentimentalist and a dreamer; and Mateer was one of them. But in

meeting the experiences of life and in doing his work, he was about as

far removed from just accusation of this sort as anyone could be. Indeed,

he was such a matter-of-fact man that his best friends often wished that

he were less so. I have carefully gone over many thousands of pages of

his Journal and of his letters and papers, and I recall only one short

paragraph that savors of sentimentality. It is so exceptional that it

shall have a place here. In a letter written to a friend (Julia, I

suspect), in the spring of 1861, he says:

I have lived in the country nearly all my life, and I much

prefer its quiet beauty. I love to wander at this season over

the green fields, and listen to the winds roaring through the

young leaves, and to sit down in the young sunshine of spring

under the lee of some sheltering bank or moss-covered rock. I

love to think of the past and the future, and, thus meditating,

to gather up courage for the stern realities of life.

This is not very distressingly Wertherian, and surely ought not, ever

after, to be laid up against the young man, the fountain of whose

thoughts may at that season have been unsealed by love.

But we sadly miss the truth if we infer that, because he was so

matter-of-fact in his conduct, he was without tenderness of heart or

depth of feeling. Dr. Goodrich in his memorial article in the “Chinese

Recorder” of January, 1909, says of him:

I do not remember to have heard him preach, in English or

Chinese, when his voice did not somewhere tremble and break,

requiring a few moments for the strong man to conquer his

emotion and proceed. His tenderness was often shown in quiet

ways to the poor and unfortunate, and he frequently wept when

some narrative full of pathos and tears was read. The second

winter after the Boxer year the college students learned to

sing the simple but beautiful hymn he had just translated,

“Some one will enter the Pearly Gate.” One morning we sang the

hymn at prayers. Just as we were ending, I looked around to see

if he were pleased with their singing. The tears were streaming

down his face.

This sympathetic tenderness was as much a part of his nature as

was his rugged strength.... He dearly loved little children,

and easily won their affection. Wee babies would stretch out

their tiny arms to him, and fearlessly pull his beard, to his

great delight.

His students both feared him and loved him, and they loved him

more than they feared him; for, while he was the terror of

wrongdoers and idlers, he was yet their Great-heart, ready to

forgive and quick to help. How often have we seen Dr. Mateer’s

students in his study, pouring out their hearts to him and

receiving loving counsel and a father’s blessing! He loved his

students, and followed them constantly as they went out into

their life work.

A lady who was present tells that when the first of his “boys” were

ordained to the ministry he was so overcome that the tears coursed down

his cheeks while he charged them to be faithful to their vows.

His mother’s love he repaid with a filial love that must have been to her

a source of measureless satisfaction. Julia could not reasonably have

craved any larger measure of affection than she received from him as her

husband; and later, Ada entered into possession of the same rich gift.

One of the things that touched him most keenly when he went away to China

was his separation from brothers and sisters, toward whom he continued to

stretch out his beneficent hand across the seas.

He was a man who believed in the necessity of regeneration by the Holy

Spirit in order to begin a genuinely Christian life. This is one of those

great convictions which he never questioned, and which strengthened as he

increased in age. When he united with the church in his nineteenth year,

he thereby publicly declared that he was sufficiently sure that this

inward change had passed upon him to warrant him in enrolling himself

among the avowed followers of Christ. But of any sudden outward religious

conversion he was not conscious, and made no profession. In the brief

autobiographical sketch previously quoted he says:

I had a praying father and mother, and had been faithfully

taught from my youth. I cannot tell when my religious

impressions began. They grew up with me, but were very much

deepened by the faithful preachings of Rev. I. N. Hays, pastor

of the church of Hunterstown, especially in a series of

meetings held in the winter of 1852-3.

As to his external moral conduct there was no place for a visible

“conversion”; he had no vicious habits to abandon, no evil companions

from whom to separate himself. It was on the inner life that the

transformation was wrought, but just when or where he could not himself

tell,—an experience which as to this feature has often been duplicated in

the children of godly households.

The impression which I formed of him while associated with him in college

was that he lived uprightly and neglected no duty that he regarded as

obligatory on him. I knew that he went so far beyond this as to be

present at some of the religious associations of the students, such

as the Brainard Society, and a little circle for prayer; and that he

walked a couple of miles into the country on Sabbath morning to teach a

Bible class in the Chartiers church. If I had been questioned closely I

probably would have made a mistake, not unlike that into which in later

years those who did not penetrate beneath the surface of his life may

easily have fallen. I would have said that the chief lack in his piety

was as to the amount of feeling that entered into it. I would have said

that he was an honest, upright Christian; but that he needed to have the

depths of his soul stirred by the forces of religion in order that he

might become what he was capable of, for himself and for others. Possibly

such an expression concerning him at that time of life might not have

been wholly without warrant; but in later years it certainly would have

been a gross misjudgment, and while I was associated with him in college

and seminary it was far less justified than I imagined.

On October 13, 1856, he began the Journal which, with interruptions, he

continued for twenty years. In the very first entry he gives his reasons

for keeping this record, one of which he thus states:

I will also to some extent record my own thoughts and feelings;

so that in after years I can look back and see the history of

my own life and the motives which impelled me in whatever I

did,—the dark and the bright spots, for it is really the state

of one’s mind that determines one’s depressions or enjoyments.

He records distinctly that the Journal was written for his own eye alone.

One in reading it is surprised at the freedom with which occasionally

he passes judgment, favorable and unfavorable, on people who meet him

on his way. Concerning himself also he is equally candid. Most that he

has to say of himself relates to his outward activities, but sometimes

he draws aside the veil and reveals the inmost secrets of his soul and

of his religious life. As a result we discover that it was by no means

so calm as we might suppose from looking only at the surface. In this

self-revelation there is not a line that would be improper to publish to

the world. A few selections are all that can be given here. A certain

Saturday preceding the administration of the Lord’s Supper was kept by

himself and other college students as a fast day, and after mentioning an

address to which he had listened, and which strongly appealed to him, he

goes on to say:

I know that I have not been as faithful as I should. Though

comparatively a child in my Christian life, as it is little

more than a year since I was admitted to the church, yet I

have come to the table of the Lord with my faith obscured, my

heart cold and lifeless, without proper self-examination and

prayer to God for the light of his countenance. I have spent

this evening in looking at my past life and conversation, and

in prayer to God for pardon and grace to help. My past life

appears more sinful than it has ever done. My conduct as a

Christian, indeed, in many things has been inconsistent. Sin

has often triumphed over me and led me captive at its will. I

have laid my case before God, and asked him to humble me, and

prepare me to meet my Saviour aright. O that God would meet me

at this time, and show me the light of his countenance, and

give me grace and strength; that for the time to come I might

lay aside every weight and the sins that do so easily beset me,

and run with patience the race that is set before me! There

seems to be some unusual interest manifested by some just

now; so that I am not without hope that God will bless us and

perhaps do a glorious work among us. Many prayers have this

day ascended to God for a blessing, and if we are now left to

mourn the hidings of God’s face, it will be because of our sins

and our unbelief. I have endeavored to keep this as a true fast

day; yet my heart tells me that I have not kept it as I should.

Sin has been mingled even in my devotions. Yet I am not without

hope, because there is One whose righteousness is all-perfect,

whose intercessions are all-prevalent. Blessed be God for his

unspeakable gift.

The next day, however, among other things, he wrote:

I think that I have never enjoyed a communion season so

much.... This day my hopes of heaven have been strengthened,

and my faith has been increased; and if I know my own heart,

(O that I knew it better!), I have made a more unreserved

consecration of myself to God than I have ever done before; and

may he grant me grace to live more to his glory!

Surely, the young man who thus opens to our view the secrets of his inner

religious life was not lacking seriously in depth of feeling. One is

reminded of the Psalmist’s hart panting after the water brooks.

In the seminary he still had seasons of troubled heart-searching and

unsatisfied longings for a better Christian life. After reading a part of

a book called “The Crucible,” he says:

I have not enjoyed this Sabbath as I should. My own heart is

not right, I fear. I am too far from Christ. I am overcome by

temptation so often, and then my peace is destroyed, and my

access to a throne of grace is hindered. I am ready to exclaim

with Paul, “Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me

from this body of death!” Would to God I could also say with

the assurance he did: “I thank God, through our Lord Jesus

Christ.”

At the same time there is evidence that he was advancing toward a higher

stage of religious experience, and that he was leaving behind him the

elements of repentance and faith, and going on toward “perfection.” He

reads the Life of Richard Williams, the Patagonian missionary, and then

sits down and writes:

He was a wonderful man; had a wonderful life. His faith

transcends anything I have ever had. His communion with God

was constant and joyous, at times rising to such a pitch

that, in his own words, “he almost imagined himself in

heaven.” His resignation to God’s will and consecration to his

service were complete in the highest. In his life and in his

death is displayed in a marvelous manner the power of God’s

grace. Reduced almost to the certainty of death by scurvy,

in a little, uncomfortable barge or float, with scarce any

provisions, far from all human help, in the midst of storms

and cold, this devoted man reads God’s Word, prays to him from

his lowly couch, and deliberately declares that he would not

exchange places with any man living! What godlike faith! What

a sublime height to reach in Christian life in this world!

I am more and more convinced that our enjoyment of God and

sweet sense of the presence of Christ as well as our success

in glorifying God depends entirely on the measure of our

consecration to him, our complete submission of our wills to

his. My prayer is for grace thus to consecrate and submit

myself to his will. Then I shall be happy.

I do not think that Mateer had any disposition to follow in the footsteps

of Williams by tempting Providence through doubtful exposure of his life

and health to danger; it was the consecration to the service of God that

he coveted. He seems about this time to have made a distinct advance

in the direction of an increasing desire to give himself up wholly to

the service of his divine Master, and to submit himself entirely to the

will of God. A most severe test of this came to him in the questions of

his duty as to foreign missions. First, it was whether he ought to go

on this errand, and whether he was willing. Nor was it an easy thing

for him to respond affirmatively. He was a strong man, and conscious of

his strength. For him to go to the unevangelized in some distant part

of the world was to put aside almost every “fond ambition” that had

hitherto attracted him in his plans for life. Opportunities to do good

were abundantly open to him in this country. Tender ties bound his heart

to relatives and friends, and the thought of leaving them with little

prospect of meeting them again in this world was full of pain. To go as

a missionary was a far more severe ordeal fifty years ago than it is in

most cases to-day. Bravely and thoroughly, however, he met the issue.

Divine grace was sufficient for him. He offered himself to the Board

and was accepted. Then followed another test of his consecration just as

severe. For a year and a half he had to wait before he ascertained that

after all he was to be sent. There were times when his going seemed to

be hopeless; and he had to learn to bow in submission to what seemed the

divine will, though it almost broke his heart. When, late in 1862, one of

the secretaries told him that unless a way soon opened he had better seek

a permanent field at home, he says in his Journal:

It seems as if I cannot give it up. I had such strong faith

that I should yet go.... I had a struggle to make up my mind,

and now I cannot undo all that work as one might suppose. What

is it? Why is it, that my most loved and cherished plan should

be frustrated? God will do right, however; this I know. Help

me, gracious God, to submit cheerfully to all thy blessed will;

and if I never see heathen soil, keep within me at home the

glorious spirit of missions.

It was a severe school of discipline to which he was thus sent, but he

learned his lesson well.

One cannot think it at all strange that under the conditions of the

outward voyage he suffered at times from spiritual depression. November

19, 1863, he made this entry in his Journal:

Spent the forenoon in prayer and in reading God’s Word, in

view of my spiritual state. I have felt oppressed with doubts

and fears for some time, so that I could not enjoy myself

in spiritual exercises as I should. I have had a flood of

anxious thoughts about my own condition and my unfitness for

the missionary work. I began the day very much cast down;

but, blessed be God, I found peace and joy and assurance in

Christ. In prayer those expressions in the 86th Psalm, “ready

to forgive,” and “plenteous in mercy,” were brought home to

my heart in power. I trust I did and do gladly cast myself

renewedly on Jesus, my Saviour. Just before dinner time I went

out on deck to walk and meditate. Presently my attention was

attracted by Georgie (Mrs. B’s little girl) singing in her

childish manner the words of the hymn, “He will give you grace

to conquer.” Over and over again she said it as if singing

to herself. They were words in season. My heart caught the

sound gladly, and also repeated it over again and again, “He

will give you grace to conquer.” I thought of the parallel

Scripture, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” The Spirit of

God was in those words, and they were precious. My fears were

all gone. I was ready to go, in the strength of this word, to

China, and undertake any work God should appoint. I went to my

room, and with a full heart thanked God for this consolation.

Out of the mouth of babes thou hast ordained strength. I am

glad that I gave this season to special seeking of God; it has

done me good. Lord, make the influence of it to be felt. I had

much wandering of mind at first, but God mercifully delivered

me from this. O, that I could maintain habitually a devotional

spirit, and live very near to the blessed Jesus!

Though he but dimly understood it then, the Lord was in the school of

experience disciplining him in qualities which in all his subsequent

work he needed to put into exercise: to rest on the promises of God in

darkness, to wait patiently under delays that are disappointing, and to

endure in the spirit of Christ the contradictions of the very sinners for

whose higher welfare he was willing to make any sacrifice, however costly

to himself.

On his field of labor he was too busy with his duties as a missionary

to write down much in regard to his own inner life. Nor is there any

reason to regard this as a thing greatly to be regretted. The fact is

that during the decade which extended from his admission to membership

in the church to his entrance on his work in China, he matured in his

religious experience to such a degree that subsequently, though there was

increasing strength, there were no very striking changes on this side of

his character. In the past he had set before himself, as a mark to be

attained, the thorough consecration of himself to the service of God, and

it was largely because by introspection he recognized how far he fell

short of this that he sometimes had been so much troubled about his own

spiritual condition. Henceforth this consecration, as something already

attained, was constantly put into practice. He perhaps searched himself

less in regard to it; he did his best to live it.

In connection with this, two characteristics of his inner life are so

evident as to demand special notice. One of these was his convictions

as to religious truth. He believed that the Scriptures of the Old and

New Testament are the Word of God, and he was so sure that this is

radically essential in the faith of a missionary that he was not ready

to welcome any recruit who was adrift on this subject. He believed also

with like firmness in the other great evangelical doctrines set forth

in the symbols and theologies of the orthodox churches. His own creed

was Calvinistic and Presbyterian; yet he was no narrow sectarian. He was

eager to coöperate with the missionaries of other denominations than his

own; all that he asked was that they firmly hold to what he conceived to

be the essentials of Christianity. Because he believed them so strongly,

these also were the truths which he continually labored to bring home to

the people. In a memorial published by Dr. Corbett concerning him, he

says:

Nearly thirty years ago I asked an earnest young man who

applied for baptism, when he first became interested in the

truth. He replied: “Since the day I heard Dr. Mateer preach at

the market near my home, on the great judgment, when everyone

must give an account to God. His sermon made such an impression

on my mind that I had no peace until I learned to trust in

Jesus as my Saviour.” An able Chinese preacher, who was with me

in the interior, when the news of Dr. Mateer’s death reached

us, remarked, “I shall never forget the wonderful sermon

Dr. Mateer preached a few weeks ago in the Chinese church

at Chefoo, on conscience.” This was the last sermon he was

permitted to preach. Salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus

Christ, man’s sinfulness and need of immediate repentance, and

faith, and the duty of every Christian to live a holy life and

constantly bear witness for Jesus, were the great truths he

always emphasized. He died in the faith of the blessed gospel

he so ably preached for nearly half a century.

Hand in hand with these great convictions went an absolute loyalty to

duty. To this he subordinated everything else. The reason why he toiled

with his own hands, on buildings, on machinery, on apparatus, was not

because he would rather do this than preach Christ, but because he was

convinced that the situation was such that he could not with a good

conscience refuse to perform that labor. It was not his preference to

give long years to the making of the Mandarin version of the Scriptures;

he did it because plainly it was his duty to engage in this wearisome

task. He fought with his pen his long battle for Shen as the word to be

used in Chinese as the name of God; and even when left in a commonly

conceded minority, still refused to yield, only because he believed that

in so doing he was standing up for something that was not only true but

of vital importance to Christianity in China. His unwillingness under

protracted pressure to introduce English into the curriculum of the

Tengchow school and college, the heartbreak with which he saw the changes

made in the institution after its removal to Wei Hsien, were all due not

to obstinancy but to convictions of duty as he saw it.

A man of this sort,—strong in intellect, firm of will, absolutely loyal

to what he conceives to be his duty,—travels a road with serious perils

along its line. A loss of balance may make of him a bigot or a dangerous

fanatic. Even Dr. Mateer had “the defects of his qualities.” He did not

always make sufficient allowance for persons who could not see things

just as he did. He sometimes unwarrantably questioned the rectitude of

others’ conduct when it did not conform to his own conception of what

they ought to have done. But these defects were not serious enough

greatly to mar his usefulness or to spoil the beauty of his character.

His wisdom as a rule, his rectitude, his entire consecration to the

service of God in the work of missions, his wealth of heart, after all,

were so unquestionable that any wounds he inflicted soon healed; and he

was in an exceptional degree esteemed and revered by all who came into

close touch with him.

Was Dr. Mateer a very “spiritually-minded man”? It is not strange that

this question was raised, though rarely, by some one who saw only the

outside of his life, and this at his sterner moments. He even did much

of his private praying when he was walking up and down in his room, or

taking recreation out on the city wall, and when no one but wife or

sister knew what he was doing. One had to be admitted to the inner shrine

of his heart to appreciate the fervor of his piety.

VII

DOING THE WORK OF AN EVANGELIST

“I have traveled in mule litters, on donkeys, and on foot

over a large part of the province of Shantung, preaching from

village to village, on the streets, and by the wayside. Over

the nearer portions I have gone again and again. My preaching

tours would aggregate from twelve thousand to fifteen thousand

miles, including from eight thousand to twelve thousand

addresses to the heathen.”—AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 1897.

The first thing which Mateer set himself to do, after he arrived at

Tengchow, was to acquire the language of the people. The difficulties

which the Chinese tongue presents to the foreigner are too well known

to need recital here, nor was it easier to Mateer than to other persons

possessed of good ability and thorough education. In January, 1902, at

the request of Secretary Speer, he prepared for the use of the Board

of Missions a paper on the subject of “Missionaries and the Language.”

In it he does not profess to be telling his own experience, and yet it

is largely an exhibit of what he had himself done. In the introductory

paragraph he says:

One of the tasks, and to many one of the trials, of missionary

life, is the learning of a new, and often a difficult language.

So far as the message of the gospel is concerned, the tongue is

tied until the language is learned. I set it down as a first

principle, that every missionary should go out with a distinct

and fixed determination to learn the language and to learn

it well. Let there be no shrinking from it, no half measures

with it. Laxity of this purpose in this matter is unworthy

of anyone who is called to be a missionary. When I hear a

young missionary, after a few weeks or months on the field,

saying, “I hate this language; who can learn such outlandish

gibberish as this?” my opinion of his fitness for the work at

once suffers a heavy discount. Every young missionary should

consider it his or her special business to fall in love with

the language as quickly as possible.

Then he proceeds to lay down certain general principles and thoroughly to

elaborate them; insisting that everyone can learn the tongue of a people,

not merely well enough to make some sort of stagger at the use of it, but

thoroughly; and giving directions as to the best method of accomplishing

this result. At the same time he recognizes the fact that by no means

all missionaries are able to acquire the language so perfectly that they

are competent to contribute to the permanent Christian literature of the

country.

In his case there were exceptional difficulties as to this preliminary

work. Printed helps were few and not very good. Competent native teachers

were almost impossible to obtain at Tengchow, and were liable at any time

to abandon their work. Besides, so long as the Mateers were hampered by

their narrow quarters, along with other missionaries, in the old temple,

and while he was compelled to give almost the whole of his strength to

the repairs and construction of buildings, for him to accomplish what

he otherwise might have done in this line was impossible. Under date of

December 24, 1864, almost a year after his arrival at Tengchow, he wrote

in his Journal:

I have been studying pretty regularly this week, yet to look

back over it, I cannot see that I have accomplished much.

Learning Chinese is slow work. I do not wonder that the Chinese

have never made great advances in learning. It is such a

herculean task to get the language that a man’s best energies

are gone by the time he has himself prepared to work. It is as

if a mechanic should spend half his life, or more, in getting

his tools ready. Before I came to China I feared that I would

have trouble acquiring the language, and I find my fears were

well grounded.

This confession is very notable, coming as it does from the pen of him

who subsequently, as one of his associates said after his death, “became

not only the prince of Mandarin speakers among foreigners in China, but

also so grasped the principles of the language as to enable him in future

years to issue the most thoroughgoing and complete work on the language,

the most generally used text-book for all students of the spoken tongue”;

and it may be added, who was selected by the missionaries of all China,

in conference, to be chairman of the committee to revise the Mandarin

version of the Scriptures, and who in all that work was easily the chief.

The diligence with which he improved every spare moment in the study of

the language is shown by a letter of Mrs. Julia Mateer, in which she

writes of reading aloud to her husband in the evening while he practiced

writing Chinese characters.

Really he was making better progress than probably he himself imagined.

On January 14, 1865, he began to go regularly into the school, to teach

the children a phonetic method of writing the Chinese characters. He

records that on February 7 he took charge of the morning prayers, and

adds:

It seemed very strange indeed to me to pray in Chinese, and no

less awkward than strange. I found, however, less embarrassment

in doing it than I at first supposed. I might easily have begun

some time ago, but our school-teacher performs the duty very

acceptably, and so I left the matter to him until I was fully

prepared. I trust that it will not be long till I will be at

home in using Chinese.

Tengchow is the seat of one of the competitive literary examinations for

students, and at the season when these are held thousands of candidates

present themselves. Under date of March 11, of that year, he says:

A goodly number of the scholars have come to see me, to get

books and to hear “the doctrine.” I have had opportunity

to do considerable preaching, which I have not failed to

embrace. Some of them understood me quite well. I find a great

difference between talking to them and to the illiterate

people. They understand me a great deal better. Most of

them listen with attention, and some of them with evident

interest. They all treated me with respect. I gave them books;

they promising to read them, and to come again at the next

examination.

These occasions continued to offer like opportunity in succeeding

years, and he took all the advantage of it that he could. Only rarely

did students give him any cause for annoyance. On May 22 he went to a

fair that was held just outside one of the gates, and tried his hand at

preaching to that miscellaneous audience in the open air. In the forenoon

he talked himself tired, and returned in the afternoon to repeat the

effort, but with what effect he could not tell. Rain came on and he

had to stop. He added in his Journal, “Oh, how I wish that I could use

Chinese as I can English,—then I could preach with some comfort!” On

Sabbath, June 19, he preached his first sermon before the little Chinese

church organized at Tengchow. The notice he had was short, Mills having

been taken ill, and sending him word that he must fill the pulpit. He

says: “I could not prepare a sermon, and translate it carefully and

accurately. I had just to get ready some phrases, and statements of the

main points, and depend on my Chinese for the rest. I got on better

than I expected I should, though to me at least it seemed poor enough.”

We need not follow the process of his acquisition of the language any

further, except to say that he never ceased to study it, and to seek to

improve in it, although he came by and by to be able to use it, in both

speaking and writing, so well that the Chinese often took more pleasure

in hearing and reading his productions than if he had been a native.

As the senior missionary, Mills had charge of the church organized at

Tengchow, and any preaching that Mateer did in it was occasional. It

was not long before a movement was organized for evangelistic work on

the streets, and he gladly took part in that method of work. He was

anxious also to obtain a room which he could use as a chapel. His first

efforts to secure such a building were rendered futile on account of

the intense opposition of the people, and the disinclination, or worse,

of the officials to enforce his legal rights in this matter, under the

treaty. It was not until the middle of April, 1867, that he succeeded in

opening a room where he and his Chinese assistant could have a regular

place for preaching and selling books. It stood on a principal street,

and was, therefore, as to location, well suited for the work to which it

was set apart. The opening of it was the occasion for the gathering of

a crowd of rowdies who threw stones at the doors, and otherwise created

disturbance; but prompt arrest of the ringleader and the haling of him

before a magistrate brought the rowdyism to a close. Of course, the

school afforded another local opportunity for evangelization, and it was

from the very first effectually employed.

Tengchow itself was not very responsive to the gospel. The demand for

books was soon satisfied to such an extent that sales became small.

The novelty of street preaching and of the chapel services gradually

was exhausted. The little church did not attract many on the Sabbath,

except the regular attendants. True, a city of so many inhabitants

might seem—notwithstanding such limitations as existed—a sufficient

field for all the labor that could be put upon it by the little band of

missionaries located there. But beyond the walls was all the rest of the

province of Shantung, with none to evangelize it save the missionaries at

Chefoo and Tengchow. That province is in area about one-third larger than

the State of Pennsylvania; and it now has somewhere in the neighborhood

of thirty millions of inhabitants, mostly scattered in innumerable

villages, though frequently also concentrated in cities. The climate is

about that of Kentucky, and the productions of the soil are not very

different. Part of the surface of the country is hilly and some of it

rises into mountains of moderate height; but most of it is level or

slightly rolling. Writing to one of the secretaries of the Board, under

date of May 10, 1869, Mateer thus expressed himself as to the strategic

importance of Shantung in the tremendous enterprise of evangelizing China:

I think it is almost universally admitted that Tsinan fu [the

capital, situated about three hundred miles southwest of

Tengchow] offers the most promising field for missionary effort

in China. The region in which this city lies is the religious

center of China. Here both the great sages of China, Confucius

and Mencius, were born. At Tai An, a short way to the south,

the great religious festival of China is held, and there are

unmistakable evidences that there is a religious element in the

people of this province found nowhere else in China. I feel

like saying with all my might, Let the Presbyterian Church

strike for this province. It has given both religion and

government to China in the ages that are past, and it is going

to give Christianity to China in the future.

These pioneer missionaries in Shantung as promptly as possible sought,

first by itineration, and later by opening new stations, to carry the

gospel far and wide over the province. In this they labored under one

serious inconvenience from which their brethren in much of south China

are exempt. Down there it is easy to travel extensively on the rivers

and the numerous canals. In Shantung the one great river is the Hoang,

or Yellow, running from the west toward the east; and the one important

canal is the Grand, running north and south; and both of these are so

far remote from Chefoo and Tengchow that in the itineration of the

missionaries from these places they were of little use. As a consequence

they had to adopt the other methods of travel customary in that region.

Even to-day, though a railway runs from the coast at Kiaochou, across

Shantung to Tsinan fu, and another across the west end of the province

and passing through Tsinan fu is almost completed, much of the territory

is no more accessible than half a century ago. The traveler can hire a

mule, or more probably a donkey, and—throwing his bedding across the

packsaddle—make his way, with the owner of the animal running along as

driver, to the place where, if he proceeds farther, he must hire a second

mule or donkey; and so on to the end of his journey. One can also travel

by wheelbarrow. These conveyances are considered to be quite genteel,

and are much patronized by Chinese women. The wheels are big and clumsy,

and, being innocent of oil, creak fearfully, and as the wheelbarrows

are without springs the passenger is jolted excruciatingly. They are

propelled by a man pushing by the handles, and often with the aid of

another, and sometimes a donkey in front, and it may be with a sail

to catch the wind. In the hilly regions the shentza, or mule litter,

is common. In describing this conveyance Mateer said in one of his

Sunday-school letters:

The motion is various and peculiar. Sometimes the mules step

together, and sometimes they don’t. Now you have a plunging

motion like the shaking of a pepper box, then comes a waving

motion like the shaking of a sieve; and then a rolling motion

like the rocking of a cradle, and then by turns these various

motions mix up and modify each other in endless variety. I

have often thought that if a man had a stiff joint, one of

these shentzas would be a good thing to shake it loose. You

are completely at the mercy of these two mules. If you are

sitting up you think that you would be more comfortable lying

down, and if you are lying down you think that you would be

more comfortable sitting up. There is no relief from incessant

shaking but to get out and walk.

The most genteel mode of travel is a two-wheeled cart, provided always

that the track called a road is wide and level enough to permit it to be

used. I fall back on the Sunday-school letter for a description of it:

A Chinese cart is heavy and clumsy to the last degree. It has

no springs, no seat, no cushions, and is only wide enough for

one to sit in it. The only way to keep your arms and head from

being broken by the top, is to wedge yourself in with quilts

and pillows. Passenger carts are usually drawn by two mules,

one in the shafts and the other directly in front, hitched by

two long ropes to the axle—one passing on each side of the

shaft mule. The driver either walks, or rides on the back part

of the shafts.... I took one ride in one of these big carts,

which I shall remember while I live. We had all gone to a

country station, one hundred and twenty miles from Tengchow, to

a meeting of Presbytery. After Presbytery we wished to go on

to another station forty miles distant. There had been a great

rain, and the ground was soft, and we could get no conveyance.

At length we got a big cart to carry our luggage and Dr. Mills

and myself. For it they rigged up a top made of sticks and

pieces of matting. The team consisted of a mule, a horse, and

two oxen, with two drivers. Mrs. Mateer had a donkey to ride,

and Mrs. Capp had a sedan chair. Dr. Mills and myself took

turns in walking with the native elder and assistant. When we

got all our effects, bedding, cooking utensils and so forth, in

the cart there was only room for one to sit, and the other had

to lie down. The first day we dragged through the soft earth

fifteen miles, but in order to do it we had to travel an hour

after night. It was pitch dark and we had no lantern. We came

very near losing our way, and finally had no small trouble in

reaching an inn, and when we did reach it what a fuss there

was before we got stowed in and got our suppers! We obtained

a small room for the ladies, but Dr. Mills and I did not fare

so well. We had to sleep on the ground in a sort of shed which

had no doors. The next day we got an early start, and found

the roads a little better, and managed to make the other

twenty-five miles. During the day we crossed a sandy river

which was swollen by the rains, and there was some danger that

we might stick fast in the sand. The native assistant crowded

into the cart. The elder put one foot on the end of the axle,

which in a Chinese cart projects several inches beyond the hub,

and supported himself by holding on to the side of the cart.

The second driver perched himself in the same way on the other

end of the axle. The chief driver stood erect on the shafts,

astride of the shaft mule. He flourished his whip with one hand

and gesticulated with the other, and both drivers hurrahed at

the top of their voices. The team got excited, and with heads

and tails erect,—with a splash and a dash,—we went safely

through.

There is one other mode of travel, and perhaps then still the most common

of all, even with missionaries when itinerating, and that is to walk.

When the traveler on foot comes to a river if he has long patience he

may be ferried across; but if the stream is not very deep he may have to

wade. Mateer, however, had a good strong physique and simple tastes, and

was entirely free from any disposition to fret over small annoyances.

In those earlier itinerating days he cheerfully took his full share in

roughing it with other missionaries out in the province. He repeatedly

took trips when all the provision he made for eating was a spoon and a

saltcellar; the food he ate was such as he got at the inns and from place

to place. His experiences in this line of evangelistic efforts had an

important influence on his work in the school and the college. Certainly

it was a great help toward that remarkable acquaintance with colloquial

Chinese which is shown in his literary labors.

His first trip to the country was made on October 14, 1864, and therefore

before he had learned the language sufficiently to enable him to do much

missionary work. In reality it was just a visit by the entire foreign

force stationed by both the Baptists and Presbyterians at Tengchow out

to a Chinese Christian residing ten miles away. In a measure, however,

it was a typical journey. The roads were execrably bad, and Mateer and

another missionary had one mule between them, so that each walked half

the way. On August 22 of the ensuing year he, and Corbett,—who had come

up for the purpose,—started on a genuine itinerating tour. It was in

one particular an unfavorable time. A Chinese inn at any season is apt

to be uncomfortable enough to a person who has been accustomed to the

conveniences and comforts of western civilization. In the Sunday-school

letter already quoted Mateer said:

The inns in China are various in size, but similar in style.

You enter through a wide doorway which is in fact the middle

of a long, low house fronting on the street. On the one side

of this door, or passageway, is the kitchen, which is usually

furnished with one or two kettles, a large water jar, and a few

dishes, with a meat-chopper and chopping block. Usually there

is a little room partitioned off at the far end, which serves

for office and storeroom. On the other side is a wide, raised

platform about two feet high, made of mud brick. It answers

for the muleteers and humbler guests, to sleep on. Inside of

this front building is a court or yard with a long shed at

one or both sides, and troughs for feeding mules and donkeys.

At the further end of this court, and sometimes at one side,

are rooms for guests. These rooms contain no furniture but a

table and a bench or two, and sometimes a chair, with a rough

board bedstead, or a raised brick platform to take the place

of a bedstead. No towel, soap, or other toilet necessaries are

furnished. They usually have one washbasin, which is passed

round, and is used besides for washing the sore backs of mules,

and for such other necessary uses. There are no stoves or other

means of warming the rooms. Sometimes they build a fire of

straw under those brick bedsteads, which invariably fills the

room with smoke. Or, you can order a pan of charcoal, which

will fill the room with gas. The houses are all one story and

have no ceiling. The rafters are smoked as black as ink, and

are always festooned with cobwebs. The rooms never have wooden

floors. In the more stylish inns the floors are paved with

brick, but in ordinary inns the floors are simply the ground.

In the summer fleas and mosquitoes are superabundant, and they

attack all comers without respect of persons. Every night

there is in the courtyard a musical concert which continues at

intervals till morning, and is free to all the guests. The

tune is carried by the mules and donkeys, and the scolding and

swearing of the muleteers make up the accompaniment. Voices

of great excellence are often heard in America, but for real

pathos and soul-stirring effect there is nothing like a dozen

or two Chinese donkeys, when they strike in together and vie

with each other for the preëminence. No common table is set,

but meals are prepared to order and served to guests in their

rooms. They are generally charged for by the dish.

Unfortunately Mateer and Corbett had selected for their first itineration

a time of year when the mosquitoes and fleas and other vermin are at

their worst, and they suffered accordingly.

They were gone just four weeks; and during that period they traveled two

hundred and twenty-five miles. Much of the time it rained. At Laichow

fu for this cause they were detained a week; and they had to lodge in a

room whose roof leaked so badly that they had to protect themselves with

oilcloths and umbrellas. The water was three feet deep on the floor.

One day they crossed twenty-two streams, none of them large, and yet

often of such a character as to render passage very troublesome. For a

while they had a shentza borne by a couple of crowbait mules, one of

which was blind and had the trick of suddenly lying down for a rest, and

occasionally fell flat into a mudhole, or tumbled its rider over a steep

bank. They met with a variety of treatment from the people, but mostly

it was not unfavorable to the prosecution of their work. Foreigners were

still a curiosity in the region, and that often attracted a crowd to

see them, and to ascertain by hearing and by reading what might be the

nature of the Christian doctrine. Once it became necessary for Mateer to

use force to repel a man who persistently tried to seize a book. Each of

the missionaries preached about forty times, and at all sorts of places.

Their largest evident success was in disposing of books; these for the

most part by sale, the total of pages distributed amounting to two

hundred and seventy-seven thousand. The details of the tour are given in

Mateer’s Journal. If preserved, they will one day be of extreme interest

to the Christians of China, as records of the very beginnings of the

teaching of the gospel in Shantung.

Again, the next spring Mateer and Corbett, accompanied by Chinese

assistants, went on another tour of preaching and of book-selling. Mateer

left Tengchow on April 5, and reached home on May 19. They started with

twenty-eight boxes of books, each weighing about seventy pounds; and,

because they had exhausted the supply, they had to turn back before

reaching the place to which they had originally intended to go. One of

the noteworthy things in their itinerary is that it brought them for

the first time to Wei Hsien, now one of the largest of the Presbyterian

mission stations in north China, and the site of the College of Arts of

the Shantung University; and to Tsingchow fu, the site of the Theological

College. In both towns the Presbyterians and the Baptists are united.

All that Mateer said in his Journal concerning Wei Hsien is:

We did not go through the city, except the suburbs. The streets

were full of people, and they were not sparing in their

expressions of enmity and contempt. We saw a great number of

elegant memorial arches near Wei Hsien and learned that it is

a very wealthy place. This was indicated by the many elegant

burying grounds around it, and by the good condition of the

walls. The country all around, and indeed most we passed

through to-day, was very rich. A man on the road who appeared

to know told us that one individual, the richest in the city,

was worth three million taels [then more than as many million

dollars].

Tsingchow fu receives from him a much more extended notice. He speaks

of the city—although very much smaller than evidently it once had

been—as still large and filled with business. The surrounding country

wins from him great admiration. Indeed, at several places he was much

attracted by the prospect which spread itself out before his eyes; and

some of it reminded him even of the natural scenery of his “Old Home” in

Pennsylvania. Of course, it must not be supposed that all the region they

traversed was the equal of this; much of it was far less attractive in

almost every particular.

On this journey they had a great variety of experiences, some of them far

enough from pleasant. Nearly everywhere they went, curiosity attracted

crowds of adults and of children. This seems to have been especially true

in the neighborhood of Wei Hsien and Tsingchow fu. At the inns where

they stopped, privacy was almost impossible; the people peering in at

the windows and bolting into the room they occupied. Sometimes they were

compelled to expel the intruders with a dash of water or with an uplifted

cane. Harder to bear were the opprobrious epithets applied to them.

Mateer said:

Every village I come to, the term, “devil!” “devil!” comes

ringing in my ears. Not that they always called it at me,

but to one another, to come and see. Frequently, however, it

was called out most spitefully, for me to hear. I think that

within the last two days I have heard it from at least ten

thousand mouths. It is strange how such a term could have

gotten such universal currency. It expresses not so much hatred

to the gospel as it does the national enmity of the Chinese to

foreigners.

Happily at the present time foreigners are seldom saluted by this

epithet. At Chang Tsau they had two serious disturbances. The first

was caused by some sort of soothsayer, in whom the people had much

confidence. While Mateer was surrounded by a crowd of men to whom he was

selling books, in rushed this man, brandishing an ugly looking spear;

and, using the Chinese expression of rage, “Ah! Ah! I’ll kill you!” he

drove the spear straight at Mateer’s breast. In those early days of his

missionary work Mateer carried a revolver for self-defense when going to

places where he might be attacked, believing that he had a moral right to

protect himself from assault by evil-minded persons. On this occasion

the revolver was drawn instantly. As the man came closer Mateer seized

the spear, and warned the intruder of the consequences if he advanced a

step farther. The risk was too great for the courage of the soothsayer,

and he went away crestfallen, but cursing the missionary, threatening

to return and kill him, and launching his anathemas against anybody who

bought the books. After the disturbance the people were not so eager to

buy, and an official tried to induce Mateer to cease his efforts, but,

partly to show the futility of such interruptions, he continued, until at

length weariness compelled him to stop.

The other incident occurred in connection with the selling of books

at a market. A man took advantage of a moment when the missionary

was receiving pay from a purchaser, and snatched away a book, but

Mateer seized and held him until the book was restored. This led to an

altercation between the Chinese assistant and the thief, and blows were

struck. The disturbance began to spread, and several of the crowd seemed

disposed to lay hands on Mateer, when a significant reference to the

revolver brought the movement to a prompt termination. In order to show

the people that the missionaries were doing only what is lawful under the

treaty, and that they would not put up with insult or wrong, they sought

satisfaction through the official having jurisdiction, and warned him

that the case would be brought to the notice of the American consul at

Chefoo.

There is no record of any itineration again until the latter part of

February, 1869. That trip was not long in duration or very extensive in

its territory. Julia and her sister Maggie accompanied Dr. Mateer and

were able to reach large numbers of women with the gospel. July 21 of

the same year he and Julia went on a tour of twelve weeks, their main

objective being Chow Yuen, where Miao, a zealous young convert, was

opening a chapel. The story as to him can most appropriately be told in

another chapter.

On November 10 of the same year Dr. Mateer and Julia began a journey

which lasted twenty-four days, during which they traveled about two

hundred and fifty miles, some of the road being very hilly and rough, and

the weather cold. Their course was directed to certain localities where

there were converts, and where a beginning had been made by these native

Christians to give the gospel to their neighbors. One of these places was

Laichow fu, at which two of these had been spreading the light around

them, one of them having given a commodious chapel, with a guest room

attached, in which the Mateers lodged. During a stay of three days they

preached to large numbers; and especially on the last day all opposition

was swept away, and men and women came in crowds. In a village in the

district of Ping Tu they conducted service in a little chapel on the

Sabbath. In a letter to one of the secretaries of the Board he said:

The chapel was so crowded that we were barely able to have any

regular service for the benefit of the native Christians. We

had finally to postpone our principal service till after night.

I baptized five, the four who had previously been accepted,

and one other who, though not very well instructed, was so

earnest in his profession of faith that we did not feel that

it would be right to refuse him. After this the Lord’s Supper

was administered. The circumstances made it one of the most

interesting services of the kind I have ever been privileged

to conduct. At the farthest point at which the gospel has yet

got a foothold, in a house set apart by a native Christian for

the worship of the true God, the majority of the company having

never before participated in such a service, the circumstances

were altogether such as to make the occasion one long to be

remembered.

On February 13, 1873, he and Crossett began a tour that lasted about

three months and carried them far into the interior of Shantung. They

traveled in all about a thousand miles, and preached and sold books in

over a hundred cities and towns. Once a man threatened Mateer with a

manure fork, and once he was struck by a stone thrown in a crowd by some

unknown miscreant. The usual epithet for foreigners saluted them; but,

on the whole, they escaped any serious molestation. On this trip they

visited Tai An, the great temple, and the sacred mountain, and ascended

the steps to its summit. For a week they remained preaching in the

temple to the crowds. They also went to the tomb of Confucius, and to

the magnificent temple dedicated to the sage, in that neighborhood. At

that date not many foreigners had seen these Chinese shrines; but now

they have been so often described that it would scarcely be justifiable

to cite the full and interesting record made by Mateer in his Journal as

to what he saw and did at these places. Thence they proceeded as far as

the capital, Tsinan fu, where Mateer remained for eighteen days, while

Crossett went on a journey still a couple of hundred miles farther to the

north and west, in company with an agent of the Scottish Bible Society,

which had been canvassing the province for six or eight years. At the

close of this tour they regarded the work of book-selling for most of

Shantung as so far completed as henceforth to deserve a more subordinate

place. During part of his stay at the capital Mateer preached and sold

books, and part of the time he remained in his hired lodgings to receive

visitors, of whom he had not a few. To him one of the interesting sights

was the Yellow River. On their return journey they took in Tsingchow fu,

and also Ping Tu, where the Christians then were terrified by persecution.

After this he made only one more exclusively evangelistic itineration.

The care of the infant churches and other duties called him to continue

to go longer and shorter distances from home; and in connection with

this he did a great deal of preaching here and there by the way. For

instance, in 1881 he attended a meeting of the Mission at Tsinan fu,

and incidentally he preached in a hundred and sixty-three villages. It

was travel for the specific purpose of carrying the gospel into wholly

unevangelized regions that he ceased to perform. In a friendly letter

written to his cousin, Mrs. Gilchrist, as early as June 28, 1875, he said:

The first years I was in China I traveled a good deal, and

preached and sold books in the streets. I have not done so much

of it the last two or three years, having been more closely

engaged in my school. The younger men in the mission have been

doing it chiefly. I am preparing a number of books for the

press, and this has taken a good deal of time, and will take

time in the future.

That final evangelistic itineration was made in 1878, and lasted from

the middle of October to the middle of November. It was out toward the

general region of Ping Tu and Laichow fu. The party consisted of Mateer

and Mills, Mrs. Mateer and Mrs. Shaw, and a couple of Chinese assistants.

Mrs. Mateer and Mrs. Shaw visited the native Christians while the men

went to districts where there were no churches. In a letter to the Board

Mateer said:

We each hired a donkey to carry our bedding and books, while we

walked from village to village, and preached in the streets. I

preached in this way in one hundred and ninety villages, and

Mr. Mills in about as many. We went aside from the great roads

into villages never before visited by any foreign missionary.

We had audiences of from eight or ten, up to two or three

hundred. In many cases we had a goodly proportion of women as

hearers. Our reception was very various, for which in most

cases we have no means of accounting. In some cases many came

out to see and hear us. In other cases no one seemed inclined

to pay any attention to us, and a considerable time would

elapse before we would succeed in drawing a company to preach

to. In one village I failed entirely to get anyone to listen. A

goodly number saw us, but they passed by without stopping. One

boy ventured to ask where we came from, when instantly a man

near by at work reproved him for speaking to us. My assistant

and I sat and waited about half an hour, and then went on to

the next village. We carried a few books in our hands as a

sort of advertisement of our business, and to give to such as

would accept them. Sometimes the books were readily accepted,

and we could have given away any number; but frequently not

a soul would accept a book. No doubt some would have liked

very well to have a book, but they were ashamed to accept it

from the hated foreigner in the presence of so many of their

neighbors and acquaintances. Only in two or three cases was any

open hostility shown us, and in these it was confined to two

or three individuals who failed to carry the crowd with them,

so that in spite of their attempts to scatter our audience we

still had plenty of hearers.

Then as to the value of this kind of missionary effort he added an

estimate from which he never deviated, and which in substance he

continued to repeat:

This method of work is very excellent, and at the same time

very laborious. It reaches obscure places, and a class of

people—those who stay at home—not otherwise reached. To be

successful it must be pursued at a time of year when the people

are somewhat at leisure.

VIII

THE TENGCHOW SCHOOL

“The object of mission schools I take to be the education of

native pupils, mentally, morally, and religiously, not only

that they may be converted, but that, being converted, they may

become effective agents in the hand of God for defending the

cause of truth. Schools also which give a knowledge of western

science and civilization cannot fail to do great good both

physically and socially.”—THE RELATION OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS

TO EDUCATION; a paper read before the Shanghai Missionary

Conference of 1877.

The Tengchow School in 1884 was authorized by the Board of Missions

to call itself a college. For several years previous to that date it

deserved the name because of the work which it was doing in its advanced

department. On the other hand, it did not cease at that time to maintain

instruction of an elementary and intermediate grade. In the present

chapter we will for convenience confine our attention mainly to the

twenty years lying between the opening of the school and the formal

assumption of the name of a college. Beyond the end of that period lies

the story of the institution under the title of the Shantung College, for

another twenty years at Tengchow; and since then, of the Shantung Union

College, at Wei Hsien.

Under date of April 2, 1864,—less than three months after the Mateers

arrived at Tengchow,—Dr. Mateer made this entry in his Journal, “We

have it in prospect to establish a school.” Their plan at that time was

to leave the Mills family in possession of the old Kwan Yin temple,

and to find for themselves another house where they could reside and

carry on this new enterprise. But when, during the latter part of that

summer, they were left in sole possession of the temple, they proceeded

at once so to fit up some of the smaller buildings in the court as to

make it possible to accommodate the little school. In September the

first term opened, with six little heathen boys, not one of whom had

ever been to school before; and with quarters consisting of two sleeping

rooms, a kitchen, and a small room for teaching. Chang, who was Mateer’s

instructor in Chinese, was set to work also to teach these boys; and a

native woman was put in charge of the cooking department. To Julia he

always attributed the initiation of this entire work. For the first ten

years the school was almost entirely hers, he being otherwise at work. In

a conversation with Mrs. Fitch, of Shanghai, many years later he said:

When Julia began the boarding school for boys in Tengchow I

thought it a comparatively small work; but as it enlarged, and

also deepened, in its influence, I saw it was too much for her

strength alone. I knew that we must put our own characters into

those boys, and I could do nothing less than give myself to the

work she had so begun.

Almost half a century ago, when the school was started, and for some

time afterward, mission boards and missionaries had not settled down

into their present attitude toward education, lower or higher, as an

agency in the evangelization of the non-Christian world. There were some

very earnest and intelligent workers who insisted that for an ordained

minister to engage in teaching a school was for him to be untrue to the

calling for which he had been set apart. To sustain their position they

appealed to apostolic example, and pointed to the small results as to

conversions in the instances in which this method had been tried. Among

the advocates of schools also there was a lack of agreement as to the

immediate object to be sought by the use of this agency. Ought it to be

so much the conversion of the pupils, and through this the raising up of

a native ministry, that all other results should be regarded as of small

importance? Or, ought the school to be looked upon as an efficient means

of preparing the soil for the good seed of Christian truth to be sown

later by preaching the gospel? In the paper from which the quotation at

the head of this chapter is taken Mateer ably and fully discussed all

of these questions, bringing out fairly both sides of them, and then

presented his own convictions as he held them from the beginning of his

missionary career, and as he unswervingly adhered to them all the rest of

his life. He disclaimed any intention to exalt education as a missionary

agency above other instrumentalities, and especially not above preaching

the gospel; and claimed for it only its legitimate place. As to this he

laid down and elaborated certain great principles involved in the nature

of the case and verified by experience. Education, he said, is important

in order to provide an effective and reliable ministry; to furnish

teachers for Christian schools, and through them to introduce into China

the superior education of the West; to prepare men to take the lead in

introducing into China the science and arts of western civilization,

as the best means of gaining access to the higher classes in China, of

giving to the native church self-reliance, and of fortifying her against

the encroachments of superstition from within and the attacks of educated

skepticism from without. On the last of these propositions he enlarged

with wise foresight:

So long as all the Christian literature of China is the

work of foreigners, so long will the Chinese church be weak

and dependent. She needs as rapidly as possible a class of

ministers with well-trained and well-furnished minds, who will

be able to write books, defending and enforcing the doctrines

of Christianity, and applying them to the circumstances of

the church in China.... Again, as native Christians increase

in numbers, and spread into the interior, they will pass

more and more from under the direct teaching and control of

foreigners. Then will arise danger from the encroachment of

heathen superstition, and from the baneful influence of the

Chinese classics. Superstitions of all kinds find a congenial

soil in the human heart, and they often change their forms

without changing their nature. The multiform superstitions

of China will not die easily; and unless they are constantly

resisted and ferreted out and exposed, they will commingle

with Christianity and defile it.... The day is not distant

when the skepticism of the West will find its way into China.

The day when it shall be rampant is not so distant as might be

supposed. Error is generally as fleet-footed as truth. To repel

these attacks, and vindicate the truth in the face of heathen

unbelief, will require a high order of education. An uneducated

Christianity may hold its own against an uneducated heathenism,

but it cannot against an educated heathenism. We want, in a

word, to do more than introduce naked Christianity into China,

we want to introduce it in such a form, and with such weapons

and supports, as will enable it to go forward alone, maintain

its own purity, and defend itself from all foes.

In view of these ideals with regard to the object of such schools, he

concluded his paper by urging that they should be of an advanced grade

rather than primary, though not excluding the primary; that the natural

sciences should be made prominent in the instruction; and that the pupils

should be of Christian parentage, rather than of heathen. His prophecy as

to skeptical books from the West is already in process of fulfillment.

It needs to be recognized that the substance of all this was in his

mind when he opened that little elementary school. But he had to begin

with something that fell almost pitifully short of his ideal. The first

thing that was necessary was to secure a few pupils under conditions

that made it worth while, in view of his object, to teach them. One of

these conditions was that the parents of the boys should formally bind

themselves to leave them in the school six or seven years, so that they

might finish the studies prescribed. Otherwise they would stay only as

long as suited them or their parents, and they would all the while be

exposed to heathen influences that likely would nullify the Christian

instruction received. On the other hand, this arrangement made it

necessary for the school to furnish gratuitously not only the buildings

and the teachers, but the food and lodging and clothes of the pupils.

Gradually this was so far modified that the parents provided their

clothes and bedding and books. To meet the running expenses of the school

the average cost of each pupil was ascertained, and an effort was made

to secure from Sabbath schools in the United Stales a contribution of

that amount. The plan of designating a particular boy for support by a

particular Sabbath school was suggested from home for consideration, but

was discouraged, on the ground that it might often prove disappointing,

through the uncertainties as to the conduct of the boy; and it was

rarely, if at all, practiced. In order to secure these contributions each

year a letter had to be carefully prepared, and then duplicated, at first

by hand, and later by lithographing process, and sent to the Sabbath

schools that shared in giving for this purpose. These letters were of a

very high order, taking for the theme of each some important phase of

Chinese life and manners or of mission work. They might to advantage

have been gathered into a volume; and if this had been done, it would

be entitled to rank with books of the very best kind on the same general

subject. The preparation of these letters and their multiplication and

distribution cost very considerable time and labor; to lighten this for

her husband, Julia rendered valuable assistance, even to the extent

eventually of taking upon herself the entire work, except the printing.

The average expense of a boy was at first estimated at forty dollars, but

with the rise of prices as the years went by, this estimate had to be

raised. The scheme worked well enough to enable the school not only to go

on, but gradually to increase its numbers as other events opened the way.

Nor was there any difficulty in obtaining all the pupils that could be

accommodated. At the beginning all were from families who were too poor

to educate their boys in native schools, and to whom the fact that in

addition to the good education received, their boy was also clothed and

fed, proved inducement sufficient to overcome the opprobrium of allowing

him to fall under the influence of the hated foreigner. It really meant

no little in those early days, and, in fact, in all ante-Boxer times,

for parents, even though Christians, to send their boys to the Tengchow

school. An honored native pastor who was at one time a pupil there wrote:

When my parents first sent me to school, there was a great

protest from all the village. They tried to scare my mother

by saying that the foreigners were vampires who could extract

the blood of children by magic arts. Nevertheless I was sent;

though I must own that I was a little scared myself. When I

came home at Chinese New Year vacation, I was most carefully

examined by all these prophets of evil; and when they found

that not only my pulse was still a-going, but that I was even

rosier and in better flesh than before, they said that the

three months I had been there were not enough to show the

baneful results; only wait! After the Germans took Kiaochow

and began the railroad, the rumors in that region became

worse. Under each sleeper a Chinese child must be buried. To

furnish axle grease for the “fire-cart” human fat must be

tried out—anyone could see the great boilers they had for the

purpose; and under those great heaps of fresh-turned earth they

buried the bones.

At the time of the Tientsin massacre it was currently reported that

Mateer was fattening boys for the purpose of killing them, and then

taking their eyes and hearts to make medicine with which to bewitch the

people.

Nevertheless the numbers were always full, except at brief intervals,

when reduced by popular disturbances, epidemics or such causes. The

school in its second year had twelve pupils, just double the number with

which it began its work. It will be remembered that in 1867 the Mateers

built and occupied their new home. This vacated the old Kwan Yin temple

premises. In the application to the Board to erect the new home Mateer

said:

We do not propose to vacate the old premises, but to

appropriate them to the school, for which they would be

admirably adapted. We look forward with confidence to an

increase of the school. Our present number of scholars,

however, occupy all the room we can possibly spare; if we

increase we must build not only sleeping rooms, but a large

schoolroom. This would not, it is true, cost as much money as

a foreign house, but it would not come as far below as perhaps

you might suppose. The main building would make one or two most

admirable schoolrooms, which will accommodate any school we

will likely ever have. One of the side buildings would make a

very convenient dining room and kitchen, and the other, with

additional buildings made vacant, would with a very little

refitting furnish at least ten new rooms besides what we now

have. It will probably be many years before we will have more

than these.

With all his largeness of vision he did not yet foresee the coming

Tengchow college; though he was planning for greater things for the

mission as well as for the health and comfort of himself and wife.

Because the language employed was solely Chinese, at the beginning

neither Mateer nor his wife could take part in the instruction; all had

to be done by the Chinese assistant, who was a professing Christian. It

was not long, however, until both the Mateers were able to help; though

at no time did he give himself exclusively to teaching. The boys were

taught to read and write in their own language, so that for themselves

they might be able to study the Bible and other books which they were

expected to use. Arithmetic was a part of this course in the elementary

department with which the school began, and it was one of the very

first of the branches of which Mateer took charge. Mrs. Mateer had a

class in geography, and widened their vision of the world by informing

them of other lands besides China. Three times a week she undertook

the peculiarly difficult task of instructing them to sing. Of course,

there was morning worship. This was held in the schoolroom. The service

consisted of a hymn, of a chapter in the New Testament read verse about,

and a prayer. There was also evening worship. On Sabbath morning all

attended the little native chapel. In the afternoon a sort of Sunday

school was held, and in it Mateer taught the bigger boys, and Mrs.

Mateer the smaller, in the Scriptures. At worship on Sabbath evening he

questioned them all in turn about the sermon in the morning. Such was

the very humble way in which the school was nurtured in its infancy, and

started on the road to become what has been pronounced to be the very

best of all the colleges in China.

Three months after the first opening the six pupils admitted were reduced

to three, because the fathers of the other boys were unwilling to sign

the obligation to leave them in the school the required number of years.

A decade after the school was begun Mateer said in a Sunday-school letter:

Our boys are from nine or ten to eighteen or twenty years, and

a number of them have been in school seven or eight years.

If they have never been to school, we require them to come

for twelve years, but take them for a less time if they have

already been several years in a native school. We try to get

those who have already been to school, as it is a saving both

of labor and of money.

At the end of a quarter of a century after the school was begun he said:

During these years we took many boys into the school who came

to nothing. Some were too stupid, and we had to send them away

after they had learned to read and knew something of the Bible.

Others were bad boys, and we had to dismiss them; and some got

tired and ran away, or were taken away by their parents because

they wanted them at home to work. We sifted out some good ones,

who were bright and promised to make good men.

The pupils they retained at the end of the first ten years were culled

out of more than twice their number. Of the routine of the school he

wrote:

The boys go to school at six o’clock in the morning, and

study till eight. Then all meet in the large schoolroom for

prayers. After this there is a recess of an hour for breakfast.

At half-past nine they go to school again, and remain till

half-past twelve. In the afternoon they have another session

of four hours. During the shortest days of winter they have an

evening session instead of a morning session. These are the

ordinary hours of study in the native schools. At first we

thought so many hours in school too much for either health or

profit, but after trying our plan for several years, we were

convinced that for Chinese children and Chinese methods of

study the native plan is best. The great business in Chinese

schools is committing the classics, which they do by chanting

them over rhythmically at the top of their voices, each one

singing a tune of his own, and apparently trying to “hollow”

louder than the others. The din they make would be distracting

to one of us, but the Chinese teacher seems to enjoy it. The

exercise it gives the lungs compensates, perhaps, for the

want of more play hours. When Mrs. Mateer or I go into the

school to hear classes, we, of course, make them stop their

uproarious studying, and study to themselves. About half the

day our boys devote to Christian and to scientific books. They

learn a catechism of Christian doctrine, “The Peep of Day,”

Old Testament history, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Evidences of

Christianity,” and memorize portions of Scripture. They study

also geography, ancient history, arithmetic, algebra, geometry,

trigonometry, natural philosophy, and chemistry. They are

trained in singing, writing essays, and debating. The native

books which they study are composed mostly of the maxims and

wise sayings of Confucius and Mencius, together with a large

number of poems. These books teach people to be honest and

upright. They teach children to obey their parents and elder

brothers. They also contain a great deal about the duties of

the people to their rulers, and of the rulers to the people.

They praise all good and virtuous men, and exhort all to lead

virtuous lives; but they offer no motives higher than the

praise of men. They teach nothing about God or future life.

They are all written in what is called the classical style,

which is to a Chinese boy what Latin is to an American boy.

These books the boys commit to memory, and recite to their

teacher, but without understanding them. When a book has been

memorized and a boy can repeat it from beginning to end, the

teacher commences to explain it to him. He has neither grammar

nor dictionary to help him, but must learn all from the

teacher’s lips. When a young man can repeat all these books and

give the explanation, and can write an essay in the same style,

the Chinese consider him a scholar, and when he can do this,

and in addition has mastered all the other branches of study

mentioned above, we consider his education finished, and he

graduates from our school. A boy must have a good mind, and be

very diligent if he gets through in twelve years.

The clothes of the boys, of course, were entirely Chinese as to material

and style. Their food was of like character. The dormitories were low

rooms with earthen floors and the bedsteads were of dry mud. The letter

continues:

Teaching the boys their regular lessons is but a small part of

the work to be done in such a school as ours. Ways and means

have to be provided to have their food bought and properly

cooked. The cook must be prevented from stealing it, and the

boys from wasting it. Their clothes have to be made in proper

season, and mended and washed, and the boys watched that they

do not destroy them. Then each boy’s grievances have to be

heard and his quarrels examined into and settled. Bad boys have

to be exhorted or reproved, and perhaps punished and every

possible means used, and that constantly, to make the boys

obedient and truthful and honest. We also strive to train them

to habits of industry, perseverance, and self-reliance, without

which their education will do them no good. Thus you see that

to train up these boys so that they shall become good and

useful men requires a great deal of labor, patience, and faith,

and prayer.

[Illustration:

Large College Building End of Chapel College Bell

(formerly Kwan Yin Temple) Small Schoolroom]

These are homely details, but we cannot overlook them, and understand the

life of the Mateers in its connection with this work.

Discipline in any school composed of so many boys and of such varied

age could not be an easy task; in this Chinese school it was peculiarly

perplexing. There were some unusual incidents. Falsehood, stealing,

quarreling, gluttony, and even sodomy were offenses that had to be dealt

with according to the circumstances attending each case. One instance of

discipline was so distinctively Chinese that the description of it by

Mateer in his Journal deserves a place here. Under date of April 9, 1869,

he wrote:

One very distressing thing has happened within a month. Leon

Chin Chi was being persecuted by his father in relation to the

matter of his marriage engagement with Shang Yuin, when in a

fit of desperation he went and bought opium, and took it to

kill himself. Some of the boys suspected him, and went to see.

They found him lying on his bed evidently in great distress of

mind, and refusing to answer any questions save to say that

his affairs were all over with. I inferred from this, as also

from his saying to one of the boys that he would never see him

again, that he had taken poison—most likely opium. I went and

got a strong emetic, and mixed it up, but he refused to take

it. I then got a stick and used it to such good purpose that

in a very short time he was glad to take the medicine. It had

the desired effect, and in a very short time he vomited up the

opium. He seemed to lay the beating to heart very much. It was

evidently a new idea to him to be put through in such a style.

After a day or two, when he had gone to school again, I gave

him a formal and severe whipping in the presence of the school.

I thought very seriously over the matter of whipping him, and

concluded that it was my duty to do it. I believe now that it

did the boy good. He was called before the session last week,

when he manifested a good deal of sorrow and penitence. He was

publicly reproved and admonished on Sabbath morning. I am sorry

that he had such a weakness; it greatly decreases my reliance

on him, and my belief in his genuine Christian character. It

must be allowed that there is some little excuse, in the way

in which the Chinese all regard suicide. He had not got those

ideas all educated out of him.

While Mateer differed in opinion from those missionaries who favored

schools simply as effective agents for the conversion of the pupils, he

regarded this as one of the leading results to be sought and expected.

It was almost two years after the opening of his school when he had the

great joy of baptizing one of the pupils. In describing the event to a

secretary of the Board, he said:

He is the oldest boy in the school, and is in fact a man in

years, though his education is not yet nearly finished. He

has been for two or three months feeling that it was his

duty to profess Christ, but, as he is naturally modest and

retiring, he did not make his wish known. His mother, to whom

he was uncommonly attached, died recently, and this brought

him to a full decision. His examination before the session

was most satisfactory, showing that he has improved well his

opportunities of learning the truth. I have great hopes of his

future usefulness. He has a good mind, and is a most diligent

student, and if he is spared, and is taught of God’s Spirit he

may be a great treasure to us in preaching to the heathen.

Three months later he wrote again of this young man as exemplary in

conduct and as growing in grace, and added:

I am thankful that I can now say that another has since been

baptized. He is the most advanced boy in the school, and is

in fact very nearly a man. His conversion was not sudden, but

gradual, after the manner of almost all the Chinese. We trust,

however, that he is a true child of God, and we have strong

hope that if he is spared he will make a very useful man.

The next year three more of the largest boys were received into the

church. The session examined two others, but thought it best for them to

wait a few weeks; and a number more were hoping to be received, but were

advised to defer the matter. Thus the conversion of the boys gradually

progressed, until at the time when the school formally became a college,

all who had graduated, and nearly all the pupils still enrolled who were

sufficiently mature, were professing Christians.

Julia’s sister, Maggie Brown, came out to join the station at Tengchow

early enough to render valuable help in the initial stages of the

school. In 1871 she married Mr. Capp. One of the necessities which

Mateer recognized was that of a girls’ school, his reason being the

vital importance of providing suitable wives for the young men whom

he was training. After her marriage Mrs. Capp took charge of such a

school, and she and her brother-in-law, Mateer, continued to coöperate in

that important enterprise. For use in teaching she translated a mental

arithmetic, and in this she had his assistance. Dr. Corbett wrote:

“In spite of all discouragements in the way of securing permanent and

efficient heads, and of the paucity of results, he never wavered in his

support of the girls’ school, and always planned for its welfare, because

he saw in it an element necessary to the final success of the Christian

Church.” When Mrs. Capp died, she left her little all for the erection of

buildings to be used by the school which he had encouraged, and to which

she had consecrated the maturity of her powers.

Thirteen years went by before any of the young men graduated. The first

class consisted of three men who had completed the course, which by that

time had been enlarged beyond the curriculum already described so as to

include astronomy, the text-book used being a good, stiff one,—no other

than a translation of Herschell’s work. Of that first class Mateer said:

“They will probably teach for a time at least. There is more call for

teachers than for preachers at present.” Under date of May 2, 1877, he

wrote as to this first commencement:

We had a communion on the occasion. The speeches made by the

young men at graduation were excellent, and the whole effect on

the school was most happy. The boys saw distinctly that there

is a definite goal before them and their ambition was stirred

to reach it.

The report for that year speaks as follows:

All of the graduates are men of excellent talents. They are

really fine scholars both in their own language and literature

and in western science. One of them goes to Hangchow to

take charge of the mission school there,—a school which had

flourished well-nigh twenty years before the school in Tengchow

was born. Another of them goes to Chefoo, to teach a school for

the Scottish Presbyterian mission. The third goes to assist Dr.

Nevius in his extensive country work, where I am sure he will

render the most valuable service. One of our former pupils,

who has been teaching in the school during the last year, also

goes to assist Dr. Nevius in the same way. This he does of his

own free will, knowing that he will have harder work and less

pay. We expect a large number of new pupils next year. More are

anxious to come than we can take. We will try to do the best we

can.

From May, 1879, to January, 1881, the Mateers were absent from China, on

their first furlough home. During this period the school was in charge

of other missionaries, and a part of the time was without a regular

superintendent; yet it continued its work fairly well. The return of

the Mateers was made the occasion of a reception that must have been

exceedingly pleasant to them. In the Sunday-school letter for 1881 he

described it:

From Chefoo to Tengchow we traveled in a shentza. The weather

was cold and the ground covered with snow. We got along

comfortably, however, and reached Tengchow in safety. The

schoolboys had heard of our coming, and were all on the lookout

to meet us. It was Saturday afternoon, and they had no school;

so they all came out of the city to meet us on the road.

They met us in companies, and their beaming faces and hearty

expressions of delight made us feel that we were indeed welcome

back to Tengchow. Their faces looked very familiar, though some

of the smaller boys had grown very much during our absence. The

next week the school closed for the year.

Late in 1881 they were gladdened by the arrival of Robert Mateer and

Lillian as reënforcements to the mission. Robert has been one of the

most efficient of the Presbyterian missionaries in Shantung, especially

in evangelism, and is still doing most excellent work. Lillian was

attractive in person and proved herself an accomplished and successful

teacher. In the course of time she married Mr. Samuel Walker. The failure

of his health compelled their return home.