Chapter XI: Preface (5)

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.

The year 1882 seems to have been marked by a distinct advance all along the line. The average attendance rose to sixty-five. The new students were selected out of the possible admissions, and consisted of such as gave most promise as to work and character, some of them being already well advanced in their studies, and full-grown men. The secret of this was the enlargement of the constituency of the institution, through the reputation it had already won for itself among the Chinese in general, and through the increase of native Christians. Perhaps the most remarkable improvement was in the prosecution of their work by the students; a state of things due to such causes as the presence of a larger number of select and advanced pupils, with a fuller and higher and prescribed curriculum, with formal public graduation at its completion.

So straitened had their quarters become that in the following year another building was obtained, care being taken that its outfit should, as heretofore, be of so plain a character as not to lift the men who went out from the institution above their own people in their ideas and habits of living. Of course, the growth of the school and its differentiation according to the stages of the curriculum necessitated a considerable increase in the force of teachers. After graduates began to go out, several of these were employed. Lillian Mateer for a while helped in the school, but it was not long until her marriage to Mr. Walker terminated her connection with the Presbyterian work and her residence at Tengchow. In the autumn of 1882 very substantial and permanent help came by the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Hayes, whose large services will require further notice as this biography proceeds. Were it not that the story of the life of Mrs. Julia Mateer is told fully in a suitable volume, much would be said here as to her remarkable achievements, especially in the school.

Mateer’s work in connection with the school lay only in part in the classroom; but whatever shape it took, it was always of such a character as to impress his own individuality in a remarkable degree. Both he and Julia regarded personal influence as of such vital importance that they were not quite prepared to welcome an increase of pupils so great as to hazard this element of training. Dr. Corbett says: “As a teacher he was enthusiastic and eminently successful. He was always wide-awake and never dull; so he was able to keep the attention of every student. Any attempt to deceive him was useless, and students found no comfort in going to a recitation unless they had been faithful in their preparation.” The truth is that, helpful as he gladly made himself to everybody who tried to conduct himself as he ought, he was a terror to all triflers and evildoers, old or young. Dr. Mateer’s surname in Chinese was Ti. The tiger is called Lao Hu. It is significant that among themselves his students sometimes spoke of him as Ti Lao Hu. One thing he believed with his whole heart, and endeavored to impress in every legitimate way on his pupils. This is that the highest office to which a Christian man can be called is the ministry of the gospel. In all his conduct of the school his dominating desire was to raise up faithful, able, well-educated men, filled with the Spirit, to go forth as ambassadors of Christ to win China for Him. As Dr. Corbett adds: “For this purpose he gave wise counsel, intellectual effort, unceasing toil and daily prayer. He gave of his own money freely to help the destitute, and make it possible for youths of promise to fit themselves for usefulness.”

Such, briefly told, is the story of the Tengchow school. In the two decades of its existence it had fully justified the consecrated wisdom of its founder and head. From the little elementary department with which it had opened, it had advanced so as to become also a high school, and at length to do work of full collegiate rank. At the time when it formally took the name of a college, there was an average attendance of seventy-five, including three day scholars. It had educated more or less completely perhaps two hundred pupils, who had come up from Chinese families, some of them Christian and many of them heathen. Of those who remained long enough to be molded by the influences of the institution and were mature enough, all made a public profession of their faith in Christ. They had been trained to live upright, godly, Christian lives; and they had seen one of their number die in peace through his faith in Christ. The character and the work of those who had gone out to do their part in the activities of the world were such as to command respect and confidence and influence. For the graduates who were beginning to be sent forth there was a demand to fill positions of high importance, much in excess of the supply, and by no means limited to Shantung. Besides all that had been achieved, the prospect of far greater things in the future was assured.

IX

THE PRESS; LITERARY LABORS

“Making books is a very important branch of missionary effort,
which I would by no means depreciate; but he who would
undertake it should be sure of his call, and should not begin
too soon. There is a temptation to forego active evangelistic
work for the less laborious and perhaps more congenial work
of sitting in a study, translating or studying the literature
of the language. Much precious time is sometimes wasted in
this way, especially in the earlier stages of a man’s life,
before he is quite able to weigh himself against his work.
It is a rare thing indeed that a missionary should undertake
writing or translating a book inside of five years, and then
he should be supported by the advice and approval of his older
associates.”—MISSIONARIES AND THE LANGUAGE, 1902.

Mateer was at no time a very prolific contributor to the home newspapers and periodicals. For about ten years, with some frequency, he wrote for “The Presbyterian Banner” letters concerning the work of the mission done by himself and others in China; but after that he was too busy to continue such writing, except at long intervals. Once or twice he sent to the United States more labored replies to what he considered misleading articles that had appeared in such periodicals as “The Princeton Review,” in regard to the condition of things in China. He greatly deprecated laudation of matters Chinese and unwarranted hopefulness as to the immediate future of their country. He was strongly inclined to question the wisdom of the policy which the United States was pursuing in China forty or fifty years ago, and he did not hesitate to express in print here at home his views on that line of topics. Beyond these fugitive contributions to the newspapers and periodicals he published little else in this country, save a booklet or two, one or more of which he prepared for the use of the Board at their request. Sometimes he questioned whether his slight use of the home press might not leave the impression there that he was not doing as much as others who were more frequent in their contributions; but all the same he gave himself to the other work which his hands found to do.

Most of his contributions to current literature appeared in China and were written for “The Chinese Recorder.” His articles in this periodical extend over almost his entire missionary life, some of them being brief, but many of them being elaborate discussions of great subjects affecting directly or indirectly the work of evangelization in non-Christian lands. His book on the Chinese term for God was not published until 1902, and, of course, was in English, though with copious extracts from Chinese literature. His only other English book was a review of Dr. Nevius’ “Methods of Missions.”

His publications in Chinese, as we shall presently see, were very considerable in number, and were of large importance to the work of missions; for he at no time allowed himself to be diverted to the production of any treatise that would not be helpful in the one service to which he consecrated his life. But before he began to avail himself of the press for his own books, he was somewhat unwillingly compelled for a while to take the management of a printing establishment. Down at Shanghai there was already a mission press, the funds for the establishment of which had in large part been contributed for that distinct purpose, and which had been left hitherto to the management of the Presbyterian missionaries of that general region. The Synod of China—by order of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States—was organized in the autumn of 1870, and the first meeting was held at Shanghai. The condition of the mission press at that place was brought before the synod, and was by that body handed over to the foreign missionaries in attendance, as more properly belonging to their control. A plan covering the entire operation of the plant, as drawn up by Mateer in a committee and approved by the entire body, was sent home to the Board for sanction, which in due time it received. One of the things for which immediate provision was necessary was a man to take charge of the establishment, and the choice, after repeated efforts to secure some other suitable person, and after his own refusal to take the place, returned to him in such a way that he felt that he could not decline it, if limited to a period of a year, and with the privilege of spending some time as necessary up at Tengchow. Of course, temporary arrangements had to be made for the conduct of the school. For this purpose Julia’s sister, Maggie, was called into service; and with such assistance as she could command she gave excellent satisfaction. She was also in possession of the Mateer home. As to the work to which he was thus temporarily called at Shanghai, he said in his Journal:

While it is a very great trial to me to come to Shanghai, it is
not without some inducement. It will increase very largely my
acquaintance, and will enlarge my knowledge of China and its
affairs. Also I hope it may be the means of getting something
of great benefit done for Julia’s health. I am very sorry that
the doctor who treated her before is not here now. My great
sorrow is that it will interfere with my Chinese studies, and
prevent me accomplishing what I had designed.

It was not until August, 1872, that he finally went back to Tengchow to resume his work there.

The details of his life while at Shanghai probably would not interest most readers. He said of it in his Journal, under date of January 29, 1872:

I neglected everything to do the work in the press, and I
worked with an assiduity that I have rarely given to anything
in my life. I had hoped when I went to Shanghai to have some
time to study, but I found it utterly out of the question. The
demands for the press were imperative, and I just gave myself
to the work.

Two sides of his capabilities were there brought into special requisition. One of these was his efficiency as a business manager,—a characteristic due partly to his native qualities, and partly to his habits of accuracy, of wise forethought, of careful oversight, and of insistence on the faithful performance of duty by all employees. This side of his character is brought out by his “letter books.” Separation by the space of half a globe from the base of supplies made it necessary to anticipate wants by eight or ten months. For convenient reference he caused every business letter, and many others, to be copied. Especially as the school and college at Tengchow grew on his hands he had to conduct what was in reality a large miscellaneous business, under conditions that were very exceptionally difficult. He had not only to provide for his own wants in his family and in his work, but also to accommodate others by acting as their agent. His orders had to go sometimes to Shanghai, but more frequently to London, or to New York, or to some place in the interior of the United States. Many are curiosities, owing to the nature and the range of articles included—from a steam engine or a telescope or costly chemical supplies to a paper of pins. Some of the lists cover more than ten pages in the copy. Woe to the merchant or agent in London or New York or Shanghai who by mistake or for other reason sent without adequate explanation any article that was not quite in accordance with the order! He might expect to get a sharp letter, and a demand to rectify the mistake if that were practicable. Service as treasurer of the mission also gave him drill. Shilly-shally workmen are one of the horrors which sometimes call from him in his Journal groans of anguish. When he had completed his charge of the press establishment, including as it did a book department, a job department, a dwelling for the superintendent, quarters for the workmen, all of whom were Chinese, a chapel for these workmen, and other equipments, it was a well-organized business, running regularly and smoothly, and doing its work about as efficiently as was possible under the conditions.

The other side of his capabilities there especially called into exercise was his mechanical gifts. As an illustration, the following from his Journal, under the same date as that just given, will answer:

I had to get a Japanese dictionary started, and it was a most
embarrassing affair. My predecessor had made promises which
he could not fulfill. The men were there to print, and yet we
had to send to England for paper to do the job. Also all the
pronunciation marks for Webster’s dictionary were to be put in,
and we did not have the type or the matrices. I had to have the
letters cut on wood, and matrices made; this was a world of
trouble. Some of the letters were cut over half-a-dozen times
or more, and after all they were far from perfect. I also had a
set of shaped music types cut, and this took a deal of time and
pains to get them all properly cut, as also to get the matrices
made. I finally succeeded quite well in both respects.... I
also experimented not a little in stereotyping, and succeeded
in doing fair work. I trained one boy who stereotyped Matthew
before I left. In order to carry it on effectually and rapidly
I had a furnace and press made and fitted up, which after
sundry changes worked very well.... I also had a new style
of case for Chinese type made, which I think will be an
improvement on the old. I also had a complete and thorough
overhauling of the matrices, reassorted them all, and had new
cases made. This was a serious job, but it will I am sure prove
a very great help to the efficient working of the establishment.

He consented to manage the press only until a competent man could be secured to take it off his hands. When casting about for such a person, his mind had been directed to his brother John, nearly a year before he was himself forced into this position. John had hoped to go to college, and to prepare for the ministry, and to go out as a missionary, but, on account of certain tendencies developed as to his health, he was compelled to abandon his purpose. As to his mechanical gifts and his ability to turn them into use in a great variety of ways, he resembled Calvin; and the latter was so confident that John could soon fit himself to be a competent superintendent of the press at Shanghai that he advised the Board of Missions to make inquiry in regard to him. The result was that eventually he was selected for the place, and he arrived in China early in August, 1871. Before he could satisfactorily enter on his duties it was necessary for him to acquire some knowledge of the language and to acquaint himself with the business committed to his charge. This detained Calvin until late in that year; and after a period of some three months spent at Tengchow, he returned to Shanghai to assist John in moving the press to new and much better premises that had been purchased. The moving proper was a heavy job, requiring a week of hard, dirty labor. The distance was about a mile, mostly by water, but by land a hundred or more yards at either end. While thus engaged, although he was no longer officially at the head of the business, he took the main charge, so as to allow his brother to give his time chiefly to the acquisition of the language and to other things that he needed to learn.

The new place is the same now occupied by the press in Peking Road. Under the superintendency of Rev. G. F. Fitch, it has become the center not only of the Presbyterian missions, but of the general missionary activity all over China. In writing to his brother as early as November, 1869, he said of this plant: “It is a very important place, and would give you an extensive field for doing good. The establishment is not very large, it is true, as compared with similar establishments in such cities as New York or Philadelphia; yet it is the largest and best of the kind in China. It not only does all the printing for all our missionaries, but a great deal of job work for others; besides making and selling a large amount of type.” After he had completed his term of the management, and while helping John to get into the traces, he wrote to one of the secretaries of the Board:

I am not in favor of enlargement, but I would be very sorry to
see the present efficiency of the press curtailed. It is doing
a great and a good work not only for our missions, but for all
China. It has exerted a prodigious collateral influence both
in China and in Japan, affording facilities for the production
of all kinds of scientific books, dictionaries, and so forth.
Aside from any general interest in the missionary work, having
at no small sacrifice left my proper work and given more than a
year to the press, and also having a brother here in charge of
it, I feel a lively interest in its future.

The last record that has come down to us concerning his work there is: “We have just sold to the Chinese government a large font of Chinese type. They are going to use movable metal type. This is a large step for them to take, and it will do good. China yields slowly, but she is bound to yield to Christianity and Christian civilization.”

At no subsequent period of his life had he any part in the management of a printing establishment, but indirectly he continued to have much to do with the press. He was a member of a joint committee of the Shantung and the Peking mission, in charge of publications, and as such he had to acquaint himself with what was needed, and with what was offered, so as to pass intelligent judgment. Unofficially and as a friend whose aid was solicited, he revised one or more of the books which his associates submitted to him for criticism. At the General Conference of Missionaries, held at Shanghai in 1877, a committee, of which he was a member, was appointed to take steps to secure the preparation of a series of schoolbooks for use in mission schools. Not long afterward he published an elaborate paper on the subject, discussing in it the character which such publications should have, and especially calling attention to the need of peculiar care as to the Chinese words which ought to be employed in the treatises on the sciences. That committee diligently set itself to work, and initiated measures for a rather comprehensive set of books by various missionaries to meet the want recognized in this general field. He was himself called upon to prepare several books, some of which he was willing to undertake; others he put aside as not properly falling to him. In one or two instances he claimed for himself precedence as to treatises suggested for others to write. Some friction occurred, and when the Conference met again in 1890 that committee was discharged, and an Educational Association, composed of missionaries familiar with the needs of schools, and confining its functions more exclusively to the publication of books for teaching—largely under his leadership—was formed. He was its first chairman. This change he had warmly favored, and he was an active member of the Association. In it he was chairman of a committee on scientific terms in Chinese, a subject of great difficulty, and of prime importance in the preparation of text-books. In the subsequent years he was so much occupied with the revision of the Mandarin Bible, and with other duties, that he could give to the technical terms only a secondary place in his activities. Still, six years after he accepted this chairmanship he says: “I have collected a large number of lists of subjects for terms in chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy, geology, metallurgy, photography, watch-making, machinery, printing, music, mental and moral philosophy, political economy, theology, and so forth.” Subsequently he continued this work.

The first literary production of his own pen in Chinese was a tract on infant baptism; this was called forth by local conditions at Tengchow. A small sheet tract, entitled “A Prayer in Mandarin,” also followed early. As chairman of the committee appointed by the Educational Association, he made a report on chemical terms, and recommended a new and distinctively Chinese method for the symbols in that science. This was printed.

In a preliminary report of the Shanghai press, made in September, 1871, he, in a list of books in course of preparation, mentions under his own name as author the following: “1. Catechism on Genesis, with answers to the more difficult questions,—_finished_, needing only a slight revision. 2. An explanation of the moral law as contained in the ten commandments,—_half-finished_. 3. Scripture Text-Book and Treasury, being Scripture references by subjects, supplying in great part the place of a concordance,—_one-third finished_.” All of these had been under way for several years, but had been frequently shunted off the track by other imperative work. Very soon after that date the catechism was published. He had a good deal to do with Julia’s “Music Book,” especially in coining appropriate terminology, though he never claimed joint authorship in it. Along with Dr. Nevius, he published a hymn book for use in Chinese services; and down to the close of his life, especially on a Sabbath when he did not preach, he now and then made an additional Chinese version of a hymn. In fact, whenever he heard a new hymn that especially moved him he wished to enrich the native collection by a translation of it into their speech. One which the Chinese came greatly to like was his rendering of the Huguenot song, “My Lord and I.” A subject that was always dominant in his mind and heart was the call to the ministry, and it was significant that one of the last things on which he worked was a translation of the hymn which has the refrain, “Here am I, send me.” It was not quite finished when his illness compelled him to lay down his pen; but recently at a meeting of the Chinese student volunteers, constituting a company rising well toward one hundred and fifty, that hymn was printed on cards, and a copy was given to each of these candidates for the ministry. In 1907 he had carried a theological class through the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and as an outcome his translation was published. This is the last religious book he made in Chinese. During his long service as a missionary he taught a number of theological classes in various studies, and his lectures were regarded as very superior, but he published none of them.

His schoolbooks all originated in the necessities of his own work as a teacher. The first thus to force itself upon his attention was an arithmetic. He was already at work on it in 1868, and it went to press while his brother John was superintending the plant at Shanghai. The preparation of such a book, to one unacquainted with the conditions under which this one was made, may seem to have been a rather easy undertaking, and to have required little more than a sufficient mastery of the Chinese language and of English; yet there were some perplexing questions that arose in connection with it. For instance, the method of writing numbers horizontally was wholly unknown to the Chinese. Should the new arithmetic use the western, or should it retain the Chinese method? To retain the Chinese would be to train the pupils in a usage that would be confusing in subsequent reading of western mathematics; to abandon it would be equally confusing in printing the text of the book, which, according to Chinese usage, must be arranged perpendicularly. The difficulty was gotten over by duplicating each pattern example, giving it once horizontally and once perpendicularly. Pupils using the book were permitted to take their choice in performing their work, but in the text proper all numbers appeared vertically. Such lines as those dividing the numerator and denominator of a fraction stood perpendicularly, with the figures to the right and the left. Until he published his arithmetic, the Chinese numerals had been employed; he introduced the Arabic. At the dawn of the new era subsequent to the Boxer outbreak, almost the first book in demand by Chinese teachers and pupils outside the mission schools was a western arithmetic; and among others put upon the market were many “pirated” editions of Mateer’s book, printed on cheap paper and with wooden blocks. The publishers had not yet learned the significance of “copyright.” The circulation of the book, however brought about, had at least the effect of immediately increasing the reputation of its author among the scholarly classes outside the church. Of the editions issued by the press at Shanghai tens of thousands of copies have been sold. Dr. Fitch writes that “it is impossible to state the total number,” and that “the book has gone into all parts of the empire.”

In October, 1884, he submitted to the schoolbook committee of the Educational Association the manuscript of his geometry, and in doing so he said of it:

It is the result of much pains and labor.... The book is
written in plain Wen-li, and much pains has been taken to
make it smooth in style and accurate in meaning. In the few
equations used I have introduced the mathematical signs
employed in the West, of which I have given a full explanation
in the beginning of the book.... Mathematical signs and
symbols are a species of universal language, used alike by all
civilized nations, and it is unwise to change them until it
is absolutely necessary. The young men who have given most
effective assistance in the preparation of this geometry are
decided in their opinion that we should not change or garble
the mathematical symbolism of the West, but give it to them in
its integrity. The only change made is in writing equations
perpendicularly instead of horizontally,—a change which is
necessitated by the form of Chinese writing.

The book was published the following year. To the same committee he reports in March, 1882, that his algebra was then all in manuscript, and only needing revision and some rearrangement before printing. The geometry was followed by his algebra, first part. These have had a large sale, though, because fewer studied this branch, not the equal of the arithmetic.

On January 14, 1908, he sent to the manager of the press the preface to the second volume of his algebra, which covers the same ground as the “University” edition in the United States. Of this Dr. Hayes says: “Over twenty years ago he began the preparation of Part II of his algebra, and the draft then made was used in manuscript for many years. Other duties pressed upon him, and he was compelled to lay it away unfinished. Yet he had not forgotten it, but from time to time he would make a step in advance. It was only a few months before his death that the work was completed and published.”

There were a number of other books which he planned, on some of which he did considerable work, but none of which he completed. One of these was so colossal in its projected scope and scholarship that it deserves special notice because indicative of the large things to which early in his missionary career he was already eager to give his time and abilities. This was a Mandarin dictionary. In its preparation he sought to associate with himself Rev. Chauncey Goodrich, of Peking; and in writing to him under date of June 6, 1874, he thus stated his conception of the work:

My idea of the book is a dictionary of the spoken language of
north China, in all its length and breadth, including on the
one hand all the colloquialisms that the people use in everyday
life,—all they use in Chi-li and in Shantung, and in all the
Mandarin-speaking provinces, so far as we can get it, noting,
of course, as such, the words and phrases we know to be local.
Further, let it include as a prominent feature all sorts of
ready-made idiomatic phrases, and in general all combinations
of two or more characters in which the meaning coalesces, or
varies from the simple rendering of the separate characters.

Considerable preliminary work had already been done, when the death of Mrs. Goodrich compelled her husband to withdraw from the partnership; and the project was abandoned by Mateer, though with a hope that it might be resumed. In 1900, however, as the fruit of this and kindred studies he published an analysis of two thousand one hundred and eighteen Chinese characters. This little book was designed to help children in dictation exercises to write characters, and is still largely used for this purpose by mission schools. The huge dictionary, though never completed, had three direct descendants. With Dr. Goodrich it produced first a Chinese phrase book, and then a pocket Chinese-English dictionary, which for brevity and comprehensiveness is a marvel, and which is regarded by almost every student of Chinese as a necessity. In marked contrast with these two volumes is an immense dictionary left behind in manuscript by Dr. Mateer. It is wholly in Chinese; and as it lies unfinished it occupies more than a cubic foot of space, and consists of a set of volumes. No comprehensive dictionary of the Chinese language has been published for two hundred and fifty years, and the last issued had been mainly classical. The object of this was to supply the evident need of a great new work of that sort. One insurmountable difficulty encountered was a phonetic arrangement commanding common usage. None had the requisite approval. Fortunately, on this undertaking Dr. Mateer did not spend his own time, except so far as that was necessary to direct the preparation of it by his scribes when they were not otherwise employed.

In his letter to his college classmates in 1897 he says that he has “well in hand a work on electricity, and one on homiletics prepared when teaching theology.” Neither of these was finished and published. To his college classmate, S. C. T. Dodd, Esq., he wrote in 1898 that he was trying also to finish a work on moral philosophy. In March, 1878, he wrote to Dr. W. A. P. Martin, of Peking: “You will remember probably that when you were here I spoke of my intention to make a natural philosophy by and by. You said, ‘Go ahead,’ and that you would retire in my favor by the time mine was ready, say, ten years hence. If I am spared I hope to have the book ready within the time, if not sooner. As you know, natural philosophy is my hobby, and I have taught it more thoroughly probably than has been done in any other school in China. I intend when I visit America to prepare myself with the material and the facilities for such work.” He was not able to find time for this work; and when later Dr. Martin invited him to write for the revised edition of his treatise the chapter on electricity, this privilege had for the same reason to be put aside. He had also advanced far toward the completion of a translation of “Pilgrim’s Progress” into Mandarin.

His “Mandarin Lessons” was published early in 1892, and immediately commanded a success even larger than its author may have anticipated. Ever since, it has gone on toward a more general use by foreigners wishing to master the language, and has now far outstripped every other work of its kind. He was a quarter of a century in making the book. June 28, 1873, he made the following entry in his Journal concerning it:

Most of last week and this I have spent in making lessons and
planning a much larger number than I have made. Mr. Mills urged
me to work at them for Dr. ⸺’s benefit, as he did not seem to
take hold of Wade. I did not think of what a job I was sliding
into when I made three lessons for Maggie a few years ago. I
have now laid out quite an extensive plan, and if I am spared
I trust I shall be able to finish it, though it will take a
deal of work. I believe that I can produce a far better book
than any that has yet been brought forth. I was not intending
to do this work now, and cannot work much more at it, as other
matters imperatively demand attention.

Guided by the hint in this quotation, we are able to trace the book still farther back to its very beginning. June 20, 1867, he said in his Journal: “Maggie Brown [Julia’s sister] has been pushing on pretty lively with the Chinese. I made her lessons for a good while, which she studies, and now she is reading ‘The Peep of Day.’ I tried to make her lessons with a view to bringing out the peculiarities of Chinese idiom. It led me to a good deal of thinking and investigating. I have a mind to review and complete the work, and may some day give it to the world. My great difficulty is in classifying the results attained.”

As the years went by his ideas of the plan for the work took definite shape. In one of his letters concerning it he wrote:

Each lesson illustrates an idiom, the word idiom being taken
with some latitude. The sentences, as you will see, are
gathered from all quarters, and introduce every variety of
subjects. I have also introduced every variety of style that
can be called Mandarin, the higher style being found chiefly
in the second hundred lessons. The prevailing object, however,
is to help people to learn Mandarin as it is spoken. I have
tried to avoid distinct localisms, but not colloquialisms.
A large acquaintance with these is important, not to say
essential, to every really good speaker of Mandarin. It is,
of course, possible to avoid the most of them, and to learn
to use a narrow range of general Mandarin which never leaves
the dead level of commonplace expressions, except to introduce
some stilted book phrase. This, however, is not what the
Chinese themselves do, nor is it what foreigners should seek
to acquire. Many colloquialisms are very widely used, and they
serve to give force and variety to the language, expressing in
many instances what cannot be expressed in any other way. I
have tried to represent all quarters, and in order to do so I
have in many cases given two or more forms.

In the pursuit of his plan he sought the aid of competent scholars in the north and in central China, so as to learn the colloquialisms and the usage of words; also in the preparation of a syllabary of the sounds of characters as heard in each of the large centers where foreigners are resident. To accomplish this he also traveled widely. Late in 1889, after a summer spent in studying the dialects of China, he, in company with Julia, made a three months’ trip to the region of the Yangtse, going down on the Grand Canal, spending a month on the great river, and remaining a month at Nanking; always with the main purpose of informing himself as to the current Mandarin, so as to perfect his book. This tour enabled him to give it the final revision; and in his opinion it “more than doubled the value” of the “Lessons.” As finished, they were a huge quarto of six hundred pages, which with the help of Mrs. Julia Mateer he saw through the press down at Shanghai. In 1901, assisted by Mrs. Ada Mateer, he issued a more elementary work of the same general nature.

The protracted study and care which he put upon the “Lessons” were characteristic of him in all his literary productions. Upon this subject no one is better qualified to bear testimony than is Dr. George F. Fitch, Superintendent of the Presbyterian Mission Press, at Shanghai, who speaks from direct personal observation. He says:

One very marked characteristic of Dr. Mateer was the almost
extreme painstaking with which he went over any work which he
was getting ready for publication; revising and re-revising,
seeking the judgment of others, and then waiting to see if
possibly new light might dawn upon the subject. I remember
reading shortly after I came to China the manuscript of a paper
which he had prepared with great labor, upon the much-mooted
“term question”; and in which he had collected, with infinite
pains, seemingly a great number of quotations from the Chinese
classics and other native works, bearing on the use of Shen as
the proper word for God in Chinese. I urged him to publish at
once, as I thought it might be useful in helping settle that
question. But he stoutly refused, saying that it was not yet
complete. Nor did it finally see the light, in print, until
nearly twenty years afterward.

None of his books at all reveal the protracted and toilsome process of the preparation. We see only the result of years of research. For instance, in his library there was a long row of Chinese books each one of which showed a large number of little white slips at the top. Each one of this multitude of marks had been placed there by some student whom he had employed respectively to read works in Chinese likely to use the word Shen, in order to indicate the passages at which he needed to look. All these were canvassed, and the different shades of meaning were classified.

From the “Mandarin Lessons,” and recently from the arithmetic, he received substantial pecuniary returns, though not at all sufficient to entitle him to be regarded as wealthy. In his manner of living he would have been untrue to his training and impulses if he had not practiced frugality, economy, and simplicity. As the means came into his possession he used them generously both for personal friends and for the promotion of the cause to which he had consecrated his life. Of his outlays for the school and college we shall presently need to speak. The expenses of the Yangtse trip came out of his own pocket. March 9, 1895, he wrote to one of the secretaries of the Board:

The mission minutes spoke, if you remember, of my intention
to erect a building for a museum and public lecture room,
and present it to the Board. This I intend to do at once. It
will cost about twelve hundred dollars, possibly more. I may
say in the same connection also that my “Mandarin Lessons”
has fully paid all the cost of printing, and so forth, and I
expect during the next year to pay into the treasury of the
Board one thousand dollars, Mexican. This I do in view of the
liberality of the Board in giving me my time while editing
and printing the book. When the second edition is printed I
expect to pay over a larger amount. I need not say that I feel
very much gratified that the book has proved such a success:
especially do I feel that it has been, and is going to be, very
widely useful in assisting missionaries to acquire the Chinese
language. My scientific books are also paying for themselves,
but as yet have left no margin of profits.

May 20, 1905, he wrote to a secretary: “I may say, however, that in view of the great importance of the school both to the Tengchow station and as a feeder to the college at Wei Hsien, I have set apart from the profit of my ‘Mandarin Lessons’ enough to support the school for the present year.” December 13, 1906, he wrote to a friend in the United States: “My brother is now holding a large meeting of elders and leading men from all the stations in this field. There are about three hundred of them. It is no small expense to board and lodge so many for ten days. I am paying the bill.” In one of his latest letters to me he mentions this ability pecuniarily to help as affording him satisfaction.

X

THE CARE OF THE NATIVE CHRISTIANS

“The need of the hour in China is not more new stations
with expensive buildings and wide itinerating. It is rather
teaching and training what we have, and giving it a proper
development. Most of all we should raise up and prepare pastors
and preachers and teachers, who are well grounded in the truth,
so that the Chinese Church may have wise and safe leaders....
There are already enough mission stations, or centers, in the
province, if they were properly worked. The need of the hour is
to consolidate and develop what we have, and by all means in
our power develop native agency, and teach and locate native
pastors,—men who are well grounded in the faith.”—LETTER TO
SECRETARY FOX, of the American Bible Society, January 6, 1906.

Dr. Mateer believed that sooner than most missionaries anticipated the Chinese Christians will join together and set up an independent church. He meant by this not merely a union of the ministers and churches of the various Presbyterian denominations at work in the country, such as has already been effected, but an organization that would include in its membership all the Protestant Christians, and that would leave little or no place for the service of foreign missionaries. He regarded this as inevitable; and for that reason he considered it to be of prime importance that such an effective preliminary work should promptly be done, that this coming ecclesiastical independence might not be attended by unsoundness as to creed or laxity in life. At the same time, in holding up the care and the training of the native Christians as so important a part of the work of the foreign missionary in China, in anticipation of what is ahead, he was only for an additional reason urging what he had in all his long career recognized as second to no other in importance. Of course, at the beginning of the effort to give the gospel to a people it is indispensable to do “the work of an evangelist”; that is, to seek by the spoken word and by the printed book to acquaint them with elementary Christian truth, and to endeavor to win them to Christ; and we have already seen how diligent Dr. Mateer was in this service, especially in his earlier missionary years. But he was just as diligent in caring for the converts when gained; and in the school and college it was the preparation of men for pastors and teachers and evangelists that was constantly his chief aim.

The first body of native Christians with whose oversight he had anything to do was that very small band that had been gathered into the church at Tengchow. Mills was the senior missionary, and as such he presided over that little flock until his death. In 1867 he was installed as the pastor, and he continued in this office nearly twenty years. During this long period Dr. Mateer at times supplied the pulpit and cared for the church in Mills’s absence or illness, but for most of the time it was only as a sort of adviser that he could render help in that field. We have no reason to think specially unfavorably of Chinese converts because some of those with whom he then had to do at Tengchow, or elsewhere, proved themselves, to him, to be a discouraging set of professing Christians. Were not a good many of Paul’s converts very much of the same grade when he traveled among the churches, and wrote his letters? Did it not take much patience, and fidelity, and persistence on the part of Christ to make anything worth while out of his select disciples? Yet these constituted the membership of the primitive church from which even the missionaries of our day have originated. At any rate some of the earliest experiences of Dr. Mateer with the native Christians were of a very depressing sort. In his Journal, under date of March 17, 1864, he made this record:

Since coming to Tengchow there have been great difficulties
in the native church. Several of the members were accused
by common fame of various immoral practices,—one of smoking
opium, another of lying and conforming to idolatrous practices,
and another of breaking the Sabbath. The second of these
confessed his fault, and was publicly reproved; the third also
confessed, and on his profession of penitence was restored to
the confidence of the church. But though the first confessed to
the use of the ashes of opium, he gave no certain assurance of
amendment; and he was suspended, and so remains. These matters
gave us all a great deal of anxiety and sorrow of heart. It is
sad thus to find that even those who profess the name of Christ
are so much under the power of sin. It is one of the great
discouragements of the missionary work. Yet God is able to
keep even such weak ones as these unto eternal life.

Under date of September 15, 1866, he told of a worse case of discipline:

We had a hearing with the accused, and gave him notice that
he would be tried, and of the charges and witnesses. We wrote
to Mr. Corbett at Chefoo, to get depositions for us. He did
so, and we met, and tried him. The evidence was sufficient
to convict him of lying, and of forging an account, and of
adultery; notwithstanding, he denied it all, endeavoring to
explain away such evidence as he was forced to admit. We
decided to excommunicate him, and it was done two weeks ago.

It must not be supposed that there was a great deal of such discouraging work; as a rule, the native Christians tried to live correct lives; and the worst that could be said of most of them at those early dates was that they were “babes” in Christ. But we cannot appreciate what the missionary needs to do as to the professed converts unless we look at this depressing phase. Besides, incidentally we are thus shown one of the methods by which the native Christians were trained in the conduct of their own churches. Each case is dealt with just as is required by the regulations of the denomination with which the church is associated. The same formalities and processes are employed as if in the United States; the same fairness and fullness of investigation, with witnesses and hearing of the accused; and the same effort neither to fall below nor to exceed what justice and charity combined demand for the good of the individual and of the organization as a whole. As to this, in these particular cases no exceptional credit can be claimed for Dr. Mateer; but we can be perfectly sure that it commanded his hearty approbation. This was a practical school also in which was called into exercise a quality of which a young missionary, and especially a man of his type, seldom has enough,—that of mingling a firm adherence to truth and righteousness with a forbearing kindness that will not break a bruised reed or quench the smoking flax. Gradually this became so characteristic of him that the boys in his school and the Christians in the churches were accustomed to come to him and unburden themselves not only of sorrows, but of faults, with no expectation that he would condone wrong or shield them from its just consequences, but confident that he would feel for them, and help them if he could. Nor was it to these classes alone that his heart and hands opened. As they came to know him better, the professor in the imperial university sought his advice and the coolie turned to him in his need; and never in vain.

But there was a brighter side to the experience of those early days. Several of the boys in the school were converted. What joy this afforded, we who live in Christian lands cannot appreciate. The little church at Tengchow also steadily moved forward in those early days of its history. In 1869 it had risen to about fifty members, and the attendance was such that a building solely for its services became indispensable; and in due time an appropriation was made by the Board of Missions, first for a lot, and soon after for a house of worship. Pastor Mills was then absent, and by appointment of presbytery Dr. Mateer acted as stated supply. As such, having first bought the lot, he made an appeal to the Board for the new edifice, saying: