Chapter IX: Preface (3)

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.

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: