CHARACTER BUILDING 
 IN CHINA 
 
 ^HE LIFE kSTORY Of 
 JULIA "BROWN MATEEIt 
 
 
 ^^ 
 

 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 COLLECTION 
 
 CHINA AND THE CHINESE 
 
 THE GtFT OF 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 
 CLASS OF 1876 
 
 1918 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 PRINT EDIM U.6 A. 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 BV 3427.M42M42 
 
 Character-building in Cliina :the life-st 
 
 3 1924 023 221 355 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023221355 
 

 character-Building in China 
 
-y 
 
 JULIA BROWN ilATEER 
 
Character-Building in 
 China 
 
 The Life-Story of Julia Brown Mateer 
 
 By 
 ROBERT McCHEYNE MATEER 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1 91 2, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
4^ 
 
 i4 
 
 ' The Aged Mother Who Nurtured Noble Sons' 
 
 (Inscription placed aver Mrs. Mateer's door by 
 Tengchffw students on her sixtieth birthday) 
 
 Seep. 64. 
 
 " More are the children of the desolate, than the 
 children of the married wife, saith Jehovah." 
 
 — Isa. liv. I. 
 
Preface 
 
 IT is simple justice to record the debt this 
 book owes to others. It is indebted to Mrs. 
 Mateer's husband, and to Mrs. Jean R. 
 Lingle, especially the latter, for gathering ma- 
 terial, and for their own contributions, not always 
 appearing over their names ; to Dr. Hunter 
 Corbett and to Mrs. Fannie Hays for unacknowl- 
 edged tributes ; to my wife in the selection and 
 copying of the contents ; and to my niece. Miss 
 Mary B. Henderson, for valuable suggestions as 
 to thought and literary finish, as well as for read- 
 ing the proof. My own contribution I offer as a 
 tribute to the memory of my sister-in-law in 
 gratitude for all she did in mothering and mould- 
 ing the character of my daughter. If the reader 
 derives from this book a tithe of the benefit it 
 has yielded the author in its preparation it will 
 be richly worth while. It is sent forth with the 
 hope that its story of the rich fruitfulness of a 
 devoted life may prove an inspiration to many, 
 leading young women of culture, and of the 
 choicest gifts of mind and heart, to give them- 
 selves joyfully to educational service in the 
 
 foreign field. 
 
 Robert M. Mateer. 
 
 Los Angeles, California. 
 
 7 
 
Foreword 
 
 THERE are characters whose simple pres- 
 ence is a stimulus and an elevation. 
 When we are with them duty appears 
 the only possibility, all weakness and untruth 
 seem to belong to a different world, the air is full 
 of vigor and lofty purpose ; life becomes a great 
 and worthy and purposeful thing, and we know 
 that there is work for us to do, that we can do it, 
 that we must do it, and that we will do it. Mrs. 
 Mateer's life, as it is told here by the competent 
 hand of her brother-in-law, should exercise such 
 a spell as this upon us. She belonged to the old 
 heroic school which did hard things without 
 making any fuss, which achieved the impossible 
 because it was one's duty to achieve it. Her 
 health never recovered from the hardships of her 
 voyage to China, yet she never complained, and 
 not for one moment did she think of laying down 
 her work. The resources available for the work 
 were scanty. What of it ? Frugality and sim- 
 plicity made only the better school of character. 
 She sang- her voice away teaching the Chinese 
 to sing. She never lamented it. It was a good 
 way to use up a trust. There is better singing 
 in the churches all over China, to-day, in con- 
 
 9 
 
lo FOREWORD 
 
 sequence. All that she had and was she put as 
 a matter of course into her work. Through such . 
 lives God breathes a new vigor into our lives, 
 and calls us to new purposes, and fresh conse- 
 cration to duty. 
 
 The mission field is full of opportunities to-day 
 where a generation ago love and faith had to 
 create them. What Mrs. Mateer did can now be 
 done by others without the difficulties which she 
 had to overcome. May this story of her strong, 
 vigorous life be the summons to many young 
 women in our colleges and Church to-day to go 
 forth into the work which is calling so loudly for 
 them where she led the way, showing what a 
 woman can do who will unfalteringly commit 
 her whole life to God and to His service. 
 
 The work which Dr. and Mrs. Mateer did is 
 the highest and best type of educational work. 
 They had three principles in it. First, the edu- 
 cational work must be Christian, powerfully and 
 effectively. Second, it must be thorough. What 
 was worth doing at all was worth doing well. 
 Moreover, an education that was not thorough 
 was not good education, for thoroughness is the 
 very first essential of education, because it is the 
 central element of character. And third, it must 
 be Chinese ; that is, it must fit the students for 
 real life. They were citizens of China, and in 
 China and for China they were to live. Their 
 education must make them leaders of their own 
 
FOREWORD 1 1 
 
 people. These are fundamental principles of all 
 true education, and Dr. and Mrs. Mateer not 
 only used them as the theory of their work, but 
 they actually achieved the results aimed at. 
 Their students were Christians. They were men 
 of solid attainments and thorough character. 
 They were leaders of their people. The work 
 was a triumph. It required patience and in- 
 domitable adherence to principle, but these were 
 the very qualities its founders possessed. For a 
 generation they put their rugged personalities, 
 robust convictions and invincible faith into their 
 project, and the issue bore the stamp of the sanc- 
 tion and blessing of God. 
 
 And such a life as Mrs. Mateer's has its abun- 
 dant lessons also for those whose work is in the 
 home-land. Increasing wealth and the ease and 
 possessions which wealth brings ; much reading 
 about the thoughts of people and especially the 
 reading of the flood of books and stories in which 
 we are thrilled by imagined deeds and by hero- 
 isms that never happened, and by the luxury of 
 such emotions acquit ourselves of the responsi- 
 bility for personal hardship and industry ; highly 
 spiced theories and exhortations and earnest 
 purposes and resolvings which consume the 
 time and energy which might go into home- 
 spun effort and unadvertised toil — these things 
 threaten to soften the fibre of our character. 
 Plain, unboasting, straightforward fidelity ; cour- 
 
12 FOREWORD 
 
 ageous openness of mind to large and difficult 
 duty ; unsparing, concentrated devotion of all of 
 our powers to our own assigned tasks — these 
 are the qualities of character needed everywhere. 
 And they are seen, when presented to us in such 
 a sketch as this, to be not only the most neces- 
 sary, but also the noblest thing in life. Just as 
 Lowell has told us in " Under the Old Elms " : 
 
 "The longer on this earth we live 
 
 And weigh the various qualities of men, 
 
 Seeing how most are fugitive, 
 
 Or fitful gifts, at best, of now and then, 
 Wind-wavered corpse-lights, daughters of the fen. 
 
 The more we feel the high, stern -featured beauty 
 
 Of plain devotedness to duty, 
 
 Steadfast and still, not fed with mortal praise. 
 
 But finding amplest recompense 
 
 For life's ungarlanded expense 
 
 In work done squarely and un wasted days." 
 
 — Robert E. Speer. 
 
Contents 
 
 I. Ancestry and Early Years 
 
 II. Getting to the Field 
 
 III. Home-Making and Language Study 
 
 IV. First Steps in College- Making 
 
 V. Higher Steps in College-Making 
 
 VI. Difficulties and Discouragements 
 
 VII. Fruit Gathering 
 
 VIII. Medical Work and Influence 
 
 IX. Itinerating 
 
 X. Feeding the Hungry . 
 
 XI. Side- Lights 
 
 XII. Stimulating the Home Church 
 
 XIII. Sunset and Evening Bells . 
 
 17 
 
 23 
 32 
 40 
 52 
 65 
 83 
 97 
 109 
 128 
 
 13s 
 156 
 
 173 
 
 13 
 
Illustrations 
 
 Julia Brown Mateer 
 
 . Frontispiece 
 Opposite Page 
 
 20 
 
 Mrs. Mateer Shortly After Her Arrival in China 
 
 Idols Found in Temple of Kwan Yin 
 
 Typical Group of Ragged Chinese Boys, Such as Those 
 First Gathered Into the School 
 
 Graduates of Tengchow College 
 
 Ting Li Mei 
 
 Liu Shu San .... 
 
 Sung Fu Wei and Family 
 
 Mrs. Li .... 
 
 Tengchow Home of Dr. and Mrs. Mateer 
 
 Mrs. Mateer On Her First Visit to the Homeland 
 After Fifteen Years On the Field 
 
 Chefoo Cemetery ; Newly Made Graves of Dr. and 
 Mrs. Mateer . 
 
 34 
 
 42 
 56 
 88 
 90 
 92 
 los 
 144 
 
 156 
 "75 
 
 IS 
 
ANCESTRY AND EARLY YEARS 
 
 THE parents of Julia Brown were people 
 of deep piety. The warmth of her kind 
 heart and the never-failing light of her 
 sunny face she inherited from her saintly mother, 
 who was taken from her when she was eight 
 years old. Her father, though always kind and 
 affectionate to his children, was looked upon as a 
 stern man. This was probably due to his Puritan 
 ideals which made him rigidly upright, always 
 regular in family religion, requiring the children 
 to commit the Westminster Catechism, and in- 
 variably to attend church, four miles away, 
 whatever the weather. His God-fearing resolute- 
 ness, fortitude and energy were very marked in 
 his daughter's character, and these were com- 
 bined with the winsomeness of her mother to 
 make her remarkable endowment. In person 
 Mrs. Mateer was of medium height and good 
 presence, attracting attention everywhere. Her 
 flashing yet gentle dark eyes were not likely to 
 pass unnoticed, and her genial manner won 
 every heart. 
 
 Her father, Robert Brown, a cabinet-maker in 
 western Pennsylvania, and her mother, Hannah 
 Cunningham, moved with their family in the 
 
 17 
 
1 8 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 early thirties to a farm near Delaware, Ohio. 
 Those were still pioneer days, when houses were 
 built of undressed logs, and were few and far be- 
 tween. Mr. Brown was a man of large influence 
 in the neighborhood, and for many years an 
 elder in the Presbyterian Church of Delaware. 
 
 Into this home Julia was born in 1838, the 
 fourth child in a family of six. Membership in a 
 large family was a most valuable training in 
 service and self-denial, and together with the ex- 
 perience in pioneer farm life did much to prepare 
 her for the rough and trying ordeals^ of heathen- 
 dom. She herself considered her education to 
 be far from satisfactory. The district school of 
 her earlier years was not of the best, and the two 
 female seminaries she attended for three years, 
 like others of that time, afforded very limited op- 
 portunities. However, she had a fine mind, 
 capable of the highest culture, and she supplied 
 the lack of her early years by a lifetime of study, 
 reading, and self-improvement. 
 
 While in the seminary at Granville, Ohio, she 
 helped organize and conduct a literary society 
 of which she was the first president. This sug- 
 gests her early interest in such work and was 
 doubtless a preparation for the efficient service 
 to be rendered later in connection with the liter- 
 ary society of Tengchow College. But the most 
 significant experience of her seminary years was 
 the marked change that came fnto her spiritual 
 
ANCESTRY AND EARLY YEARS 19 
 
 life. At the age of nineteen she was converted 
 and consecrated herself unreservedly to any work 
 to which the Master might call her. 
 
 On leaving the seminary she first taught a 
 country school. At that time it was very unusual 
 for a woman to assume entire control of a school. 
 Miss Brown showed her gift for leadership in 
 attempting it and her genius for teaching in mak- 
 ing it a conspicuous success, all of which intro- 
 duced her favorably to the school at Mt. Gilead, 
 Ohio, where she taught for three years. A great 
 love for children and influence over them made 
 her work in those early years a pleasure, while 
 her sense of responsibility spurred her on to do 
 her best. She says, " This task is so important 
 and so lasting in its effects that the strongest 
 may well shrink from it ; " but adds : " As thy 
 days, so shall thy strength be." A glimpse into 
 her journal will indicate what she was in the 
 
 schoolroom : " What shall I do with B ? Is 
 
 there no road to his heart ? Are both head and 
 heart only receptacles for fun ? This morning I 
 talked as earnestly and seriously with him about 
 some of his misdemeanors as I am capable of 
 talking to any child. He listened with mock 
 gravity to all I said, then with an emphatic nod 
 that banished almost all my own seriousness, 
 took his seat. What shall I do with him? If 
 the present only were concerned I might laugh 
 at such things and let them pass ; but there rises 
 
20 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 up before me the man and what he is to be. I 
 must help to make him." 
 
 In i860 Miss Brown's brother John, having 
 gone into business at Fulton, Illinois, induced 
 her and her sister Margaret to join him there and 
 thus seek their fortune in what then seemed the 
 remote West. It was arranged that the two sis- 
 ters should teach and keep house for their 
 brother. After a year, however, they were led to 
 return to Ohio by the failure of the brother's 
 health, Julia devoting herself to him until his 
 death. This pioneer venture of the young 
 woman was in keeping with her self-reliant spirit 
 and gave her broadened experience. 
 
 While Miss Brown was teaching at Mt. Gilead, 
 a series of revival meetings was held there. The 
 record in her journal shows her serious concern 
 for those about her : " My heart be still and be- 
 hold the Lord's doings, for they are marvellous 
 in our eyes ! The voices which so lately rang 
 out with laughter in the halls of revelry are 
 speaking for Jesus. Five of the young women 
 who were leaders in gaiety are now leading the 
 way to the cross. Alas, that so few should fol- 
 low ! Is not the Holy Spirit pleading with other 
 hearts, and will He not prevail ? " In the work 
 of the Presbyterian Church she took an active 
 part, and as a member of the choir derived much 
 benefit from the training and practice in singing. 
 
 In the spring of 1862 she became engaged to 
 
MRS. MATEER SHORTLY AFTER HER ARRIVAL IN CHINA 
 
ANCESTRY AND EARLY YEARS 21 
 
 Rev. Calvin W. Mateer, who for two years sup- 
 plied the Presbyterian Church at Delaware, Ohio, 
 and in December of the same year they were 
 married. Mr. Mateer had, while in the semi- 
 nary, offered himself to the Foreign Board, but 
 the demands of the Civil War had so depleted 
 the treasury that it was not possible to send 
 more missionaries ; accordingly he took charge 
 of the church at Delaware, hoping he might be 
 sent later to the foreign field. At the time of 
 his engagement to Miss Brown, a foreign mis- 
 sionary life was in anticipation, but a few months 
 before their marriage the Board announced they 
 could not be sent, advising Mr. Mateer to accept 
 a permanent call and abandon the idea of going 
 as a missionary. However, during their wed- 
 ding tour a letter came saying contributions 
 had been received to send two men to Shantung, 
 China, and if Mr. and Mrs. Mateer were ready 
 to go, the Board would send them. Mrs. Mateer 
 had thoroughly entered into her husband's long 
 cherished desire to be a missionary, so that 
 what had been a common disappointment was 
 now turned to great rejoicing. Mr. Mateer says 
 in his journal : " Her first exclamation after hear- 
 ing the letter, I shall not soon forget : ' Oh, I 
 am so glad I ' I shall remember that time, that 
 look, that expression." 
 
 Their union was one of complete consecration 
 and rare oneness of spirit, as well as tender de- 
 
22 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 votion ; and naturally Mrs. Mateer's marriage to 
 a man of Dr. Mateer's parts greatly enlarged 
 the vision, breadth and efficiency of her own 
 missionary life. 
 
 In April the presbytery met at Mt. Gilead, 
 Mrs. Mateer's home for three years, where she 
 had endeared herself to many friends. At the 
 close of the formal farewell service the congrega- 
 tion one by one said " good-bye," and after them 
 the school children, who loved their teacher de- 
 votedly. Mrs. Mateer was not easily moved to 
 tears, but this parting with the children greatly 
 affected her. 
 
 The months that remained before the date for 
 sailing were occupied in short visits to various 
 family friends, and in preparation for the long 
 passage around the Cape of Good Hope, as 
 there were no steamers at that time across the 
 Pacific. On the sailing ship no washing could 
 be done, so that for the six months' voyage a 
 liberal outfit was necessary. In those days China 
 was a land far remote, the comforts of life diffi- 
 cult to obtain there, the journey tedious, and 
 the separation from friends very real. It was 
 necessary to spend time and thought in collect- 
 ing what might be most useful for the journey 
 and the future home. The leave-takings, too, 
 were of a serious character, such as we can 
 scarcely understand in these days of frequent 
 mails, and the daily publication of world-news. 
 
II 
 
 GETTING TO THE FIELD 
 
 ON the 3d of July, 1863, while the battle 
 of Gettysburg was raging, Mrs. Mateer 
 in company of Mr. Mateer, Mr. and 
 Mrs, Corbett, and a few other passengers, em- 
 barked from New York for China on the sailing 
 vessel SL Paul. True to her nature Mrs. Mateer 
 could not long be idle, even to take some much 
 needed rest. She at once engaged to hear every 
 morning the lessons of Fanny B , the daugh- 
 ter of one of the ship's passengers, and mapped 
 out for herself a course of study. She says : "I 
 had made up my mind to study navigation, but 
 have since concluded it would be better for me 
 to read ' Rollin ' and ' The Reformation in the 
 Time of Calvin,' 'Alexander's Moral Science,' 
 and ' Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation.' " 
 Later: "I have been planning a division of my 
 time which I hope will enable me to make better 
 use of it." Then she indicates how every min- 
 ute of the day was to be occupied. One feels 
 the eager girding up of her spirit to prepare for 
 the life that lay before her. 
 
 Like so many other consecrated missionaries 
 of those early days, she found the long sea- 
 
24 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 voyage a time of opportunity, not waiting until 
 she reached her chosen field to begin missionary 
 work. Special anxiety for the sailors led her to 
 efforts in their behalf, although much personal 
 work among them was difficult, as passengers 
 were not allowed to converse with the ship's 
 crew. Her journal on this ocean trip records 
 the breathings of much prayer, that she may 
 have all needed patience for the trials on the 
 ship, and more grace to fit her for a large and 
 fruitful service. For example, after praying for 
 the privilege of fitness for saving souls, she 
 writes : " God will not forget any sacrifice He 
 has enabled me to make for His sake, but I 
 would fain forget all but His grace and His 
 service." Again : " I have asked Him to pre- 
 pare me to fill the sphere to which He has 
 called me, and if suffering is the only or the best 
 preparation for me, let it come, — only give me 
 grace to submit in patience, and improve by 
 every providence." " Give what Thou asketh. 
 O Lord, and then ask what Thou wilt." " My 
 soul would turn back in despair, but that I know 
 God forsakes no one in the path of duty. Weak 
 as is my faith, I believe God has called me to 
 this work, and that He will permit me to labor 
 for Him." 
 
 It is difficult to appreciate the long isolation of 
 such a sailing experience. Instance the follow- 
 ing from her journal : " Yesterday was an event- 
 
GETTING TO THE FIELD 25 
 
 ful day. Early in the morning a sail appeared 
 upon the horizon, the first we have seen for forty- 
 six days. It gained rapidly on us, overtaking 
 us about four in the afternoon, and proved to be 
 the Surprise hound from New York to Hong- 
 kong. She sailed two weeks later than we and 
 brought news to the 14th of July, telling of the 
 surrender of Vicksburg, and the battle of Gettys- 
 burg. On hearing the war news, off came hats, 
 and out came handkerchiefs, and three rousing 
 
 cheers rent the air. Captain R called his 
 
 crew on the forecastle deck and answered us 
 with another round of cheers." 
 
 The captain of the Si. Paul made life miser- 
 able for this little band of missionaries. She 
 writes : " How can a man, an American, in this 
 age of the world, render his whole ship's com- 
 pany in every way uncomfortable on account of 
 the four missionaries, against whom he pretends 
 to have no complaint except their calling ? May 
 God give him a better heart." The real reason 
 however for his furnishing the wretched food 
 upon which they had to live was a financial one, 
 and the tale of his cruel inconsiderateness is 
 almost incredible. A month after sailing she 
 records : " We came upon a spoiled cask of 
 water and found to our dismay that all the other 
 casks were spoiled. We were not much relieved 
 by hearing the captain say that we might be 
 thankful if we fared no worse. The water is 
 
26 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 putrid and tainted with spoiled rum. However, 
 our wants were relieved by a fine shower yester- 
 day and one to-day." Not only was the food 
 poor in quality and poorly prepared and often 
 half-spoiled, but the captain seemed to exercise 
 a wicked ingenuity in regard to it, openly declar- 
 ing his policy to make things go as far as pos- 
 sible by making them as unpalatable as possible, 
 and swearing at the cook for using them up too 
 fast. 
 
 At the close of the journey she says : " Our 
 fellow passengers have been agreeable, but it is 
 not possible to tell all that we have suffered on 
 account of the captain." Because of his inhuman 
 conduct the health of Mrs. Mateer and Dr. Cor- 
 bett was permanently impaired ; and they were 
 not the only ones, as some of the sailors came 
 down with the scurvy. Upon the representation 
 of the passengers, the captain was deprived of 
 his captaincy for several years. 
 
 Mrs. Mateer speaks of suffering from the heat, 
 the thermometer in her cabin ranging from 83° to 
 90°. The usual trials and disappointments in- 
 cident to unfavorable winds are mentioned. 
 " We have entered the torrid zone from the 
 south, and the hopes of the speedy termination 
 of the voyage sadly fall, for the winds are light 
 and little headway is made." There is the count- 
 ing of days it will still take, and the longing for the 
 end. Yet in all these hardships, privations and 
 
GETTING TO THE FIELD 27 
 
 weariness, Dr. Corbett testifies that Mrs. Mateer's 
 " cheerful, sunny, hopeful disposition did much 
 to cheer the voyage and help others to see the 
 bright light in the clouds." At last they landed 
 at Shanghai December 16, 1864, after an un- 
 broken sailing experience of one hundred and 
 sixty-seven days. 
 
 The large, fine, foreign-built city of Shanghai 
 was even at that early date no insignificant 
 place. Many of the great stone structures along 
 the Bund, which make the city so dignified, were 
 there then. But instead of the jinricksha, auto- 
 mobile, and trolley, the sedan chair and wheel- 
 barrow were in evidence on the streets. 
 
 The generous and cordial hospitality of the 
 Shanghai missionaries has always been appreci- 
 ated, especially by young missionaries to whom 
 everything is so strange ; it is impossible, how- 
 ever, for those landing from a large present-day 
 steamer, already having called at various ports, 
 to appreciate the feelings of this little company, 
 stepping ashore for the first time in the Orient 
 after their long, lonely and trying passage. 
 Mrs. Mateer records : " The same evening we 
 had the precious privilege of joining the mem- 
 bers of the mission, such as Dr. and Mrs. Farn- 
 ham, and Dr. and Mrs. Nevius, in a prayer-meet- 
 ing. The presence of so many Christians of itself 
 was delightful, but when every voice blended 
 in the song of praise, and when every knee 
 
28 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 bowed, and all hearts united in prayer, we felt it 
 to be a foretaste of the better world." At the 
 home of missionary friends in Shanghai Mr. and 
 Mrs. Mateer enjoyed their Christmas dinner, and 
 their first wedding anniversary. In connection 
 with this anniversary came to her as many 
 times before, since the breaking up of her home 
 in childhood, the longing for a settled home. 
 
 The second day of the New Year the mission- 
 ary party, Mr. and Mrs. Mateer, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Corbett, with others journeying north, left on 
 the Swatow, bound for Chefoo. In this small 
 vessel on the rough Yellow Sea they were all 
 seasick, but by the fourth evening all had re- 
 covered sufficiently to sit up in the cabin, and 
 were expecting to cast anchor in the Chefoo 
 harbor that night. " But our experience of sea 
 voyages was not so soon to be over. About 
 eight o'clock we felt something strike, which we 
 at once supposed to be a rock. The gentlemen 
 ran on deck and soon returned, saying that we 
 were fast in the sand I The captain had seen a 
 ship lying in a cove with a part of her sails set, 
 and supposing that she was lying at anchor, 
 thought he must be in Chefoo, so ran in near her 
 intending to drop anchor. He was terribly dis- 
 appointed at finding himself aground. The ship 
 lay with her broadside to the sea, the tide was 
 running out, but must soon change. Although 
 there was no prospect of a gale, the captain 
 
GETTING TO THE FIELD 29 
 
 feared the wind would increase when the tide 
 turned, and the ship would probably go to pieces. 
 Therefore it was decided all the passengers should 
 go ashore. He thought we were but five miles 
 from Chefoo, so two of our company started, in- 
 tending to go directly there for assistance. The 
 rest of us, following after, soon found it would be 
 useless to attempt to reach Chefoo by the beach. 
 Some Chinese tried to lead us to a habitation, 
 but we were too self-confident to be led by 
 them, so wandered on and on. At last they left 
 us to go our way. We went a long way round 
 a hill, and found them waiting for us not many 
 rods from the place of parting. By this time we 
 were ready to accept guidance, and after cross- 
 ing a narrow valley soon came to a village where 
 the snow of the streets was no warmer than that 
 in the fields. 
 
 "The people were not easily persuaded to open 
 their doors to us ; and no wonder ! A party of 
 fourteen foreigners arriving at one of our peace- 
 ful villages at home before daybreak on a winter 
 morning would be likely to excite some suspicion. 
 At last a man came out with an armful of dried 
 leaves, and made a light with which he saw the 
 ladies of the party, and Mrs. Williamson's little 
 girl. This touched his heart, and induced him 
 to believe our story, so he kindly opened his 
 door. His little house, dark and smoky as it 
 was, was a welcome shelter to us after wander- 
 
30 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 ing and waiting for five hours in the snow. Once 
 admitted, the people were very kind, bringing us 
 fuel, while rice millet, sweet potatoes and tea 
 were all furnished in abundance. 
 
 " At daylight two of the party started for Chefoo, 
 under the impression it was but half a mile dis- 
 tant. In reality it was twenty-five miles. All 
 day we awaited the gunboat that they were to 
 send us at once. About dark some foreigners 
 who were in the place heard of us and brought 
 us food and bedding, which made us comfortable 
 for the night. The next morning the gunboat 
 came to our rescue. In the afternoon they took 
 us aboard, and during the night got the Swatow 
 off the sand, landing us the next morning safely 
 in Chefoo. The two who went on ahead, and 
 Calvin, were the chief sufferers. A kind provi- 
 dence watched over us and fitted the back to the 
 burden." 
 
 After a few days in Chefoo, the Mateers and 
 Corbetts started out on the last stage of the 
 journey, which was the most novel, if not the 
 most dangerous. They had four shansi and 
 three pack-mules. The shansi or mule-litter is 
 unspeakable. Two long poles fastened to 
 wooden saddle frames are placed on the backs of 
 mules, one in front and one behind. Between 
 the poles, in the middle of the length, is strung a 
 network of ropes, and attached above is a poke- 
 bonnet-shaped cover, made of matting. Food- 
 
GETTING TO THE FIELD 31 
 
 box, clothes, books and bedding are packed in- 
 side in various ways, according to the preference 
 of the individual. Comfort is studied in the ar- 
 rangement, but little is realized, though it is the 
 missionary's Pullman car of North China. With 
 mules that seldom travel in step, the distinct 
 pepper-box, sieve-and-nutmeg-grater motions 
 are not conducive to a restful ride, shaking up 
 as they do the bones, the nerves and the temper, 
 leaving one at the close of a journey generally 
 demoralized. 
 
 Upon the trip of fifty-four miles, from Chefoo 
 to Tengchow, this party of four were detained for 
 two nights, sleeping on hard brick beds in the 
 cold, barren Chinese inns, constantly disturbed 
 by the stamping, snorting and munching of the 
 mules, along with swearing of muleteers, as they 
 fed them seemingly all night. The weather was 
 cold, the snow was falling, and for company and 
 guidance they had only one boy who knew not a 
 word of English. On January 15, 1864, they 
 ended this dismal journey. Arriving at Teng- 
 chow, they were received into the home of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Mills. 
 
Ill 
 
 HOME-MAKING AND LANGUAGE STUDY 
 
 SHANTUNG, a camel-shaped promontory 
 lying well to the north upon the coast of 
 China, is one of the eighteen provinces of 
 China proper, somewhat resembling the Central 
 Atlantic States in climate. Situated upon the 
 seacoast at the north base of the camel's neck 
 lies Tengchow, a walled city variously estimated 
 from 30,000 to 70,000 inhabitants. It is fifty-five 
 miles northwest from Chefoo, which, though a 
 small town in earlier years, was the only port of 
 entrance to the province till about the Boxer time, 
 when the Germans opened T'singtau on the 
 southern side of the peninsula, and built a rail- 
 road through to Chinanfu, the capital. 
 
 In 1862, Dr. and Mrs. Nevius, working in Cen- 
 tral China, had been appointed to open Tengchow, 
 but had been there only about six months. At 
 the time of the arrival of the Mateers they were 
 at Hangchow, whence they took their furlough. 
 Dr. and Mrs. Mills also had been transferred from 
 Shanghai to Tengchow and were already in resi- 
 dence. The Hartwell and Crawford families, of 
 the Southern Baptist Church, were just estab- 
 lished, and there have been Baptist families at 
 
 32 
 
HOME-MAKING 33 
 
 Tengchow ever since. The work of the Teng- 
 chow Mission was all, therefore, at its beginning. 
 
 The hostility of the people made it difficult to 
 secure any property for homes and mission pur- 
 poses. It chanced that a priest in charge of the 
 Goddess of Mercy Temple, on the north side of 
 the city, was much aggrieved and embarrassed 
 because the people did not give the money he 
 needed to care for the temple and the gods ; so 
 he took the responsibility of renting it to the 
 Presbyterian Mission. The temple, a plastered 
 building, consisting of one large room with altar 
 and idols at one end, was wholly unadapted to 
 residence, but had been made partially habitable 
 by Dr. and Mrs. Nevius ; having packed and 
 stored their goods, the Mateers took possession. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Corbett, utterly unable to secure 
 any place to live, were obliged to return to 
 Chefoo, and made that their home. 
 
 It is not strange that the Chinese thought some 
 great calamity would befall the missionaries for 
 thus daring to live in the temple of Kwan Yin, 
 and to build a wall across one end in front of the 
 gods, as was soon done ; all the more because 
 Kwan Yin was a popular god, most merciful of 
 all gods. The tale runs that he was originally a 
 man who lived twenty-eight hundred years ago. 
 Eminent for great virtue and great talents, after 
 death he became one of the gods. Wonderful 
 stories are told illustrating how he saved from 
 
34 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 various kinds of misfortune and distress. For 
 example: "In the Tang dynasty many devils 
 and hobgoblins broke loose, tormenting the peo- 
 ple and creating confusion in every direction. 
 When a man went from home, on his return he 
 would find his house full of hobgoblins, all look- 
 ing so much like his wife he could not distinguish 
 them from her. When either husband or wife 
 went from home they were obliged to use checks, 
 so that upon returning they might know each 
 other by matching them. Kwan Yin, seeing the 
 country was about to be utterly destroyed, put 
 forth his power and drove away these devils and 
 hobgoblins." Many believe these stories, so that 
 in every misfortune a vow or prayer is made to 
 Kwan Yin. Women are much the most untiring 
 in his worship, especially in praying to him for 
 children, so it was considered more in keeping 
 with propriety that he should be changed into a 
 goddess ; therefore, Kwan Yin changed himself 
 into the Goddess of Mercy, and is always so pic- 
 tured. For some time the idols were allowed to 
 remain behind the wall that had been built before 
 them, but by and by they were pulled down, some 
 were buried, some stored away for safe keeping 
 and later destroyed. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Mateer set about at once adapt- 
 ing the temple to their needs, and Mr. Mateer 
 found his practical and mechanical gifts very serv- 
 iceable. In the preparation of a study, an out- 
 
a 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 a 
 
 
 o 
 
 S5 
 
HOME-MAKING 35 
 
 side chimney had to be built. As the Chinese do 
 not have chimneys, and were unused to building 
 anything secure enough for more than one story, 
 the mason was without experience. But he worked 
 rapidly, for a Chinese, in order to retain the pat- 
 ronage of the foreigner. When about two-thirds 
 up, down fell the chimney. Mr. Mateer foundhe 
 had to train the mason, as he later trained the 
 men who built his permanent home. Out of the 
 sheet-iron that enclosed their household goods, 
 he contrived a stove in which he used three hun- 
 dred rivets, and he added in many other ways to 
 their comforts and conveniences. 
 
 After three years a two-story brick residence 
 was built on the lot closely adjoining the tem- 
 ple, the latter being used for school purposes. 
 Among the Chinese a two-story house was un- 
 heard of, and the difficulty of getting it properly 
 built was great. It faced a walled garden, and 
 had pleasant homelike verandas on both stories 
 from which vines and a fresh bit of grass could 
 be enjoyed in the midst of a city destitute of such 
 refreshing glimpses. The nearness of the school 
 was necessary, and was an advantage in all re- 
 spects but one. According to the Chinese cus- 
 tom the students study the classics aloud and in 
 a high key. This concert begins, to the dismay 
 of those bent on obtaining much-needed rest, 
 about four o'clock in the morning. 
 
 The Mateer home was always open to their 
 
36 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 friends. Many new missionaries have spent the 
 first months, or years, under this hospitable roof, 
 all of whom found in Mrs. Mateer a mother, a 
 counsellor and a guide. Various motherless mis- 
 sionary children were cared for during longer or 
 shorter periods. One of these writes : " Memo- 
 ries of Mrs. Mateer — ' Auntie 'Teer ' — as I called 
 her from babyhood, run through my earliest rec- 
 ollections. These silken threads wove bright 
 and joyous patterns in the web of life in child- 
 hood, and afterwards turned into pure gold, as 
 the young, struggling missionary was strength- 
 ened, cheered and inspired by the counsel and 
 life of this noble daughter of the heavenly King. 
 " A few weeks after my first great sorrow, father 
 took his three motherless children to 'Auntie 
 'Teer,' and while he went about the great work 
 imperatively calling him into the interior, she 
 loved and mothered us with all the strength and 
 sweetness of her great heart. Her days were al- 
 ready crowded to overflowing with her work for 
 the Chinese, but we children never for a moment 
 suspected that we were an added burden. I re- 
 member especially the evening hours, when we 
 gathered around her knee and listened to her 
 stories or told her all that was in our hearts. 
 
 " Only once did I go to her with a tale of woe 
 that did not elicit the expected sympathy. We 
 children slept in a large room safely guarded by 
 our faithful old Chinese nurse. One night I 
 
HOME-MAKING 37 
 
 awakened from a nightmare, oppressed with 
 fear, and my nurse asked me what was the 
 matter. She at once told me the devil him- 
 self had been at my pillow and there was but 
 one thing he was afraid of ; if I would take three 
 deep long breaths at his next appearance and 
 swallow some of his attributes, he would never 
 dare to trouble me again. This may strike one 
 as a rather heroic remedy, but I was a brave 
 child and followed her advice to the letter, just 
 as I was dropping off to sleep again. 
 
 " Thanks to this rash act I slept sweetly the 
 remainder of the night, and in the morning I 
 gravely recounted my thrilling experiences to 
 ' Auntie 'Teer.' Oh I how she laughed I How 
 her black eyes twinkled 1 How merrily her 
 dimples came and went, as she vainly tried to 
 bring herself into an attitude befitting one who 
 deals with a seven-year-old child, who believes 
 she has just swallowed three huge gulps of the 
 devil ! Her laughter had more effect upon my 
 poor little mortified soul than the serious sweet 
 talk which soon followed ; and during the fol- 
 lowing two years, when I was much thrown with 
 well-meaning but superstitious Chinese servants, 
 I never again believed their strange stories, but 
 combated their foolishness valiantly, in the mem- 
 ory of that merry laughter." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Mateer began the day after their 
 arrival the study of the language, an under tak- 
 
38 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 ing attended by much greater difficulties fifty 
 years ago than at present. At best it means hard, 
 unremitting work for two years, and to excel one 
 must keep on improving throughout life. Mrs. 
 Mateer persevered until she was able to speak 
 with great ease and fluency. Every one could 
 understand her, and she had the power of com- 
 pelling all to pay attention ; yet she did not es- 
 cape the many ridiculous blunders every one 
 makes before he is out of the woods. It is re- 
 lated that a missionary transferred from Central 
 China and hence confused in his pronunciation 
 and accent, when intending to announce a 
 monthly concert, said : " There will be a rooster 
 in this church Wednesday evening. I hope you 
 will all come." The story remembered about 
 Mrs. Mateer is this : The word for " lion " and 
 the word for " louse " have different inflections, 
 but otherwise sound the same. She was one day 
 telling her boys of David's killing a lion, impress- 
 ing upon them what a great feat he accomplished, 
 and that it was by God's assistance ; the boys 
 with a surprised air protested they had killed 
 many such. 
 
 Both Dr. and Mrs. Mateer came to have a wide 
 reputation as superior in the use of the Mandarin, 
 spoken and written. They were so impressed 
 with the importance of the mastery of the lan- 
 guage that during twenty-five years they spent a 
 great deal of time in the preparation of a manual 
 
HOME-MAKING 39 
 
 of over two hundred lessons in the Mandarin, the 
 language of three-fourths of the Chinese people. 
 Mrs. Mateer was always her husband's most 
 trusted and faithful critic in his literary work. 
 These Mandarin lessons owe much of their liter- 
 ary form to her excellent taste. She collected 
 sentences, selected English words, amended, crit- 
 icized, and read proof, all of which occupied 
 much time. Her husband says that she would 
 not allow him to give her proper credit for her 
 work. Indeed if genius means capacity for tak- 
 ing infinite pains, they are both deserving of 
 fame. This manual is the standard in China. 
 But few master all the lessons, and none can 
 know the amount of work expended in their 
 preparation. 
 
IV 
 
 FIRST STEPS IN COLLEGE- MAKING 
 
 THE first autumn in China, after much 
 prayerful consideration, and after six 
 months' study of the language, a boys' 
 school was opened by Mr. and Mrs. Mateer. 
 Both had come to China with this in mind, be- 
 lieving it to be an effective way to build up a 
 missionary church, and having already had ex- 
 perience in teaching. That the school developed 
 later into a college was no accident; from the 
 beginning this was their cherished ambition. 
 
 They were not at all in accord with the idea of 
 many earlier missionaries that their only work 
 should be to preach ; and yet they were farthest 
 removed from the thought of pushing education 
 for its own sake, or of regarding it as other than 
 the handmaid of the church in her work of soul- 
 saving and character-building. Mrs. Mateer says : 
 " I used as a child to drop corn, and think I was 
 doing an important work. The men who came 
 after, covering it with their hoes, did a harder 
 work ; but the hardest of all, and certainly not 
 the least important, was the hoeing out of weeds, 
 hilling up the corn, and cutting off the suckers 
 while the crop was growing. More are ready to 
 
 40 
 
FIRST STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 41 
 
 preach the Gospel than are willing to settle down 
 to the persistent, steady, hard pull of educational 
 work." '■ These were the considerations that con- 
 trolled throughout the long years of faithful, un- 
 ostentatious school work. They reveal to us Mrs. 
 Mateer's vision and consecration. It is easy to 
 make a prominent showing and interest the home 
 church by the baptizing of large numbers, 
 whereas the humdrum of school work and shep- 
 herding care affords little to write about, and re- 
 quires infinite patience, devotion, and faith. 
 
 The first school was composed of six boarders, 
 to which number Mr. and Mrs. Mateer limited 
 themselves until they could receive from the 
 Board formal sanction. Besides these they had 
 two day pupils. Only one was older than eleven 
 years, and only one had before attended school. 
 It was necessary at that time, in order to secure 
 the attendance of these boys, to make a formal 
 written indenture, such as the following : 
 
 " The Presbyterian Church of the great Amer- 
 ican country has appointed the Rev. C. W. 
 Mateer to open a free school in the North Kwan 
 Yin Temple, in Tengchow-Fu. He promises to 
 provide the pupil's food, clothing, and all the 
 schoolroom necessaries, and if the pupil is sick 
 
 ' In recent years it has been found easier to get men for the kind 
 of educational work now carried on in China than for direct evangel- 
 istic work. 
 
42 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 will call a physician. He also promises not to 
 take the pupil away from Tengchow-Fu. Li 
 Fang Mao, of his own free will, brings his sec- 
 ond son, age nine, to this school for six years. 
 If the boy during this time runs away, his father 
 promises to find him and restore him to the 
 school. If during this time his father takes him 
 away, he is to pay all of his expenses for what- 
 ever time he has been in school. If Mr. Mateer 
 finds that the boy cannot and will not learn, he 
 may at any time send him home. Both parties 
 agree to this and cannot break the covenant. 
 
 "(Signed) Witness 
 
 "Scribe— Chang Kan Chin, 
 "Father— Li Fang Mao." 
 
 Indentures are now unnecessary, and long since 
 out of date. At first, in order to get boys to 
 attend school, everything was supplied ; now 
 they are eager to come, never run away, and 
 furnish not only all clothing and books, but also a 
 large part of their board, the amount depending 
 on their financial ability. Under the influence 
 of the prevailing fear of having a mercenary 
 church-membership, a rule was made that the 
 sons of Christians would not be received as 
 boarders ; but this was long ago changed, and 
 instead of being discriminated against, the sons 
 of Christians have become the ones most de- 
 sired in the schools. 
 
 In the beginning of the second year word 
 came from the Board approving the school, rec- 
 
"^'■f,j 
 
 ^fe, -a^ ^ ■,.'--- i« 
 
FIRST STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 43 
 
 otnmending that the number be increased to 
 twelve, which was the number during that year. 
 In the spring of that same year, 1865, the first 
 boy was baptized, a happy event for Mrs. Mateer. 
 In the following year, to her great joy, her older 
 sister. Miss Margaret Brown, came out to be 
 associated with her, taking an active part in the 
 boys' school for a few years, and later opening 
 a girls' school of her own. 
 
 During the early years of the school it was 
 necessary for Mr. Mateer to be absent for long 
 periods upon preaching and itinerating tours in 
 the country, leaving much of the responsibility 
 to ' Mrs. Mateer. Fully two-thirds of the prac- 
 tical work devolved upon her. She gave her 
 time night and day to every detail. She kept 
 the accounts, looked after the food, the clothing, 
 the health of the boys, and a hundred miscella- 
 neous matters. "Just think," she writes, "of 
 having to watch thirty boys every day, to see if 
 their rooms are swept, their beds made, their 
 heads combed, faces washed, looking over all 
 their clothes once a week to see if they have lost 
 anything or have failed to wash, or mend, or, 
 worse still, change them ; most especially to 
 poultice their scrofulous sores ; — yet, when the 
 boys are good and everything goes smoothly (as 
 it does for a little while now and then), I think 
 what woman so happy as I." 
 
 To the end she was the confidante and adviser 
 
44 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 of all in their troubles, trials and plans, in their 
 marriage alliances and in their spiritual exer- 
 cises. The thoughtful care she gave endeared 
 her to the hearts, not only of those who were in 
 the school, but to their parents as well. Before 
 the close of the first week of each new year of 
 school, she knew accurately the full name of 
 every pupil. In China there is a complicated 
 nomenclature to represent the various family 
 relationships. Mrs. Mateer was one of the few 
 missionaries who could correctly use it. 
 
 It was not an easy matter to decide how to 
 accommodate Western methods of education to 
 the Oriental habit of mind, accustomed to regard 
 memorization and learning-by-rote as all-suffi- 
 cient. Mr. and Mrs. Mateer included in their 
 curriculum of studies the Chinese trimetrical 
 classics (which were explained as soon as corn- 
 mitted), geography, mental and written arith- 
 metic, natural philosophy, " Peep of Day," 
 "Pilgrim's Progress," "Evidences of Christian- 
 ity," and the " Church Catechism " ; later were 
 added algebra, geometry, astronomy, chem- 
 istry, etc. They early began, also, giving their 
 students practice in writing compositions, a new 
 feature of school life to them. As early as the 
 summer of 1867, drill in debate was established 
 as one of the regular features of the school. 
 Such practical and helpful subjects as the follow- 
 ing were debated : 
 
FIRST STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 45 
 
 " Which is more difficult, to rule by reason or 
 by force ? " 
 
 " Are the rich or the poor more apt to fall into 
 sin ? " 
 
 " Which is the better for this life, Christianity 
 or Confucianism ? " 
 
 "Which is better, to stay at home, or go 
 abroad ? " 
 
 " In getting an education, which is more im- 
 portant, talent or application ? " 
 
 "Which are superior in social customs and 
 philanthropy, the Chinese or foreigners ? " 
 
 " Is it beneficial to be reviled ? " 
 
 "Which is better, to worship false gods, or 
 none at all ? " 
 
 Besides these debates there were given every 
 Saturday afternoon orations, essays and declama- 
 tions. The boys made great strides in these, 
 and became so interested that a few of them pre- 
 pared original material for declamations. Mrs. 
 Mateer remarks : " The immense advantage of 
 this literary society has been apparent from the 
 beginning. The Chinese lack any such training. 
 Public speaking is an unknown art. In our 
 school the tongue is loosed, the thoughts are 
 trained to come quickly, and to be expressed ac- 
 curately. The students learn to preside at and 
 conduct meetings with parliamentary precision, 
 a great help in church meetings, as well as in 
 business. In the Shantung Federation meeting 
 
46 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 (one may say in passing) the splendid results of 
 this training have challenged admiration, and 
 been a matter of common remark. 
 
 Indeed, it may be said of Mrs. Mateer that she 
 was an accomplished teacher, especially of young 
 boys. Religious books, such as " Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress," Old and New Testaments, etc., she taught 
 with skill, making them tell upon the religious 
 character of her pupils. Besides these subjects 
 she taught geography, arithmetic, history, music, 
 etc. Both Mr. and Mrs. Mateer earnestly op- 
 posed much advanced teaching of the Bible di- 
 rectly by the various native teachers. They 
 thought its sacredness and supreme importance 
 in the eyes of the students were sure to be sacri- 
 ficed by a too familiar and perfunctory handling, 
 or by insufficient preparation on the part of the 
 teacher to give such teaching due weight and 
 value. Conditions are very different from those 
 obtaining in the American college, which can 
 command expert enthusiasts and men of high 
 training for the special teaching of the Bible. 
 Their plan was to teach in the class room Bible 
 history, along with such books as " Evidences of 
 Christianity," " Pilgrim's Progress," " Philosophy 
 of the Plan of Salvation," etc., and to make the 
 Sabbath the great day for Bible preaching and 
 teaching. 
 
 When Mr. and Mrs. Mateer moved into their 
 new house, the main building of the temple was 
 
FIRST STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 47 
 
 rearranged for the school, which had grown to 
 quite a respectable size. In '69 further enlarge- 
 ment was made to accommodate thirty boarders, 
 and the school divided into higher and primary- 
 departments. The partitions were taken out of 
 the main building, making a room thirty by 
 twenty- one feet. This was used for the high 
 school during the week, and until the church 
 was built, for services on Sunday, as it was the 
 largest room in possession of the mission. The 
 north room in the west wing was used for the 
 primary school. Hereafter these two depart- 
 ments were entirely independent, each having its 
 own kitchen, cook, and monthly allowances. 
 
 "1870 was a year of much encouragement. 
 New boys were added, some from regions hitherto 
 unrepresented. The clothes of the new students 
 were provided by their parents, quite an advance 
 upon the former custom that the school provide 
 everything. Mr. Li, the new teacher, was more 
 satisfactory than previous ones. He was enter- 
 prising and efficient, and inspired the boys with 
 more enthusiasm in their studies than they had 
 ever known. He was quick to discern character, 
 and judiciously awarded praise or gave censure. 
 He had been hopefully converted during the 
 year. The Christian boys entered into a concert 
 of prayer which was continued throughout the 
 year. Three older boys were baptized and sev- 
 eral others were seeking the Saviour. The moral 
 
48 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 sentiment of the school was on a higher plane. 
 This was especially noticeable in the matter of 
 lying. There was also less quarrelling and 
 greater possibility of making peace after a quar- 
 rel. 
 
 " During this year the boys devised a plan to 
 break up among themselves the habit of using 
 bad language. All with the exception of the 
 smaller ones entered into an agreement that any 
 boy who was heard to revile should be reported 
 to Mr. Li, who was to fine him a certain sum of 
 ' cash,' or ferrule him so many strokes. Mr. Li 
 was to collect the fines and expend the money 
 so as to benefit all. And so, whereas at first 
 there was no Christian sentiment to be counted 
 upon among boys gathered from out their 
 heathen surroundings, this humble beginning 
 was of great significance. From year to year the 
 Christian character of the school steadily in- 
 creased, until in i894in the collegiate department 
 of more than sixty there was but one who was 
 not a professing Christian." 
 
 By death and removal Tengchow had lost in 
 the years of '73 and '74, Mr. and Mrs. Capp 
 (formerly Miss Brown, Mrs. Mateer's sister), Mr. 
 and Mrs. Crossette, and Mrs. Mills, leaving Mrs. 
 Mateer the only woman in the station. The 
 burden of sorrow and extra work thus placed 
 upon her laid her aside for a time. Her work in 
 the school, as far as teaching was concerned, was 
 
FIRST STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 49 
 
 temporarily suspended. However, she did not 
 idly rest, for she was always about her Master's 
 business, whether in health or lying on the couch 
 as she often had to do. She says : " Though I 
 can hear no classes, I talk much with the boys, 
 and I sometimes think that this weakness has 
 drawn them more into sympathy with me and 
 increased my influence over them. I love to 
 work, — indeed I sometimes think I put work into 
 too high a place ; but if my being laid aside will 
 hasten the great ends sought, I ought to be glad." 
 And this was written after more than a year of 
 great pain in the head. 
 
 Again : " I have always made it a point to 
 spend a great deal of time with the boys in their 
 rooms, sometimes telling them stories, or what I 
 like better than anything else, talking with them, 
 — drawing them out to ask questions, and ex- 
 press their own opinions on all subjects. This 
 gives me so many opportunities of throwing in 
 a word of warning or of encouragement, and 
 with much better effect than in a set lecture. 
 Once I remember telling them about the hydra- 
 headed monster of the old fable, and that there 
 was one in school, setting them to guessing it 
 out, and fiot allowing the older boys to say any- 
 thing. It furnished employment for a long time 
 to pick out its heads and cut them off. The re- 
 sult was at least the temporary cure of some bad 
 habits." In such ways she helped the boys to 
 
50 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 resist and overcome meanness, duplicity, and 
 other faults, and above all to accept Jesus as their 
 personal Saviour and mould their lives by His 
 teaching and example. 
 
 At the close of 1876 a regular school com- 
 mencement was observed. Of this Mrs. Mateer 
 gives a description : " One evening was occupied 
 with a literary contest. There were two essays 
 in Mandarin, and two in classical style, two ora- 
 tions, and a debate, with judges who decided the 
 respective merits of each exercise. On com- 
 mencement evening, three young men were grad- 
 uated, each one speaking, — one upon, ' What is 
 it to Fulfill One's Whole Duty as a Man;' 
 another, ' Progress, the Law of True Living ; ' 
 and another, ' The Valedictory.' A Baptist friend 
 said of one oration that it would have done its 
 author credit at any commencement in America. 
 These accomplished and earnest young men 
 have learned no English and have not been lifted 
 above their natural position or in any way de- 
 nationalized. Our aim has been to enlighten 
 and train their minds, to make them strong, 
 manly, self-reliant Christian Chinese, fit for the 
 Master's use." 
 
 Thus the little school of six had gradually in- 
 creased until after twelve years it numbered 
 thirty-six and offered a greatly enlarged cur- 
 riculum of studies. Through it all there had been 
 unsparing toil, and much earnest prayer on the 
 
FIRST STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 51 
 
 part of this devoted couple. Mrs. Mateer says : 
 " We have had great comfort in this school these 
 last years. God has blessed our unworthy labors 
 far beyond my weak faith. Oh, if the twenty-one 
 professed Christian boys hold out faithful until 
 death, and really consecrate their talents to the 
 Saviour, what a power they may be in the 
 Church 1 My heart aches with the prayer for 
 them that as they take their places among the 
 working forces of the world, the Lord will give 
 them a spirit of consecration and use each one to 
 the full measure of his educated abilities." 
 
 Thinking at this commencement time of those 
 missionaries who had died at Tengchow, she 
 says : " I believe blessings come upon us and our 
 work here in answer to prayers from earthly 
 closets and altars and sanctuaries, and also in 
 answer to prayers from the nearer presence to the 
 throne of grace. It is to me a comforting thought 
 that we have not lost the prayers of the loved 
 ones gone before." 
 
V 
 HIGHER STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 
 
 T 
 
 ~AHE boys have finally become convinced 
 that our system of education is of use. 
 They see its advantages and know that 
 not only is their wen-li (classical language) not 
 hindered, but that the mental training they get is 
 of immense value to their wen-li. The school 
 enjoys the hearty support and sympathy of all 
 the mission, and has gained the confidence of the 
 Christians, as well as quite an extended reputa- 
 tion." So gratifying a record of results achieved 
 marks the readiness of the school for enlarge- 
 ment into a college ; but this step, already in 
 contemplation, was deferred for a little by the 
 furlough of Mr. and Mrs. Mateer. They had been 
 sixteen years in Tengchow without furlough, 
 twice the ordinary length of time now customary. 
 This in itself is a commentary on their loyal de- 
 votion to this school and the work in general. 
 They had been unable to secure any one capable 
 of taking charge of the school during their ab- 
 sence. Dr. Wherry, of Peking, finally came to 
 relieve them, making possible the much needed 
 year of rest and refreshment in the home- 
 land. During that year in America the future 
 
 52 
 
HIGHER STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 53 
 
 college was much in their thoughts and prayers, 
 and was the subject of conference with the Board, 
 who approved the plan, and placed under ap- 
 pointment Rev. W. M. and Mrs. Hayes to assist 
 in the growing institution. 
 
 Upon their return to Tengchow, the whole 
 body of students together with the teachers went 
 out a long distance beyond the city gates to 
 welcome them back. The boys had especially 
 missed Mrs. Mateer's motherly care. She says, 
 "It seems so perfectly natural to be hobbling 
 over these rough streets and looking persistently 
 straight ahead to avoid disgusting sights, and 
 airing the room to blow out the smell after call- 
 ers leave, that I can hardly realize that we have 
 been so long and so far away." Again : " We 
 have such an interminable amount of talking to 
 do here. I spent full six hours talking with one 
 man about his boy, and an hour and a half ex- 
 horting the man who sent him here." 
 
 By this time the school had increased in 
 number from forty-five to seventy, and presented 
 many problems in connection with its enlarging 
 life. Of this she writes : " The school has quite 
 outgrown our strength. We have now, of 
 course, a great deal of Chinese help, but there is 
 much work none of them can do. They are 
 faithful and energetic teachers, but lack in 
 resource and thoroughness, so that they need 
 constant supervision. As to moral influence, 
 
54 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 their intentions and purposes are all right, but 
 they are without the independence and strength 
 to make their influence felt as we have succeeded 
 in doing." "With the large increase of students 
 both Calvin and I fear for the influence of the 
 school. Its moral standard will not rise higher. 
 Indeed we fear it will fall. It is not possible to 
 reach sixty or seventy pupils and do as much for 
 them as for thirty or forty." In 1891 she says : 
 " If we get more money we can enlarge a little ; 
 but not much. One hundred students is enough 
 for one institution in a heathen land, even when 
 many of the parents are Christians. I think I 
 see why the schools in India have not had a 
 more powerful Christian influence. It is because 
 they grew in numbers too fast. The mass was 
 too great for the amount of leaven to permeate 
 it through and through. We were impatient at 
 first of our slow growth for so many years, but 
 we see now it was best. We could never have 
 gained so much influence except by beginning 
 with a small number and working up gradually." 
 The emphasis placed upon personal influence 
 by these founders of Tengchow College was 
 certainly wiser than would have been an ambi- 
 tion to have a very large institution. The plan 
 of creating large "trusts" may succeed as 
 success is measured by financiers, but great 
 combinations do not win out in character-build- 
 ing. Character is a hand-made product with 
 
HIGHER STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 55 
 
 personal influence as the all-powerful agency. 
 Such influence is lost when large aggregations 
 of students are to be dealt with. The atmosphere 
 tends to become saturated with worldly ambition, 
 and the missionary educator is found nourishing 
 the very thing he professes to deplore. The 
 great need is smaller colleges, widely distributed, 
 and conducted by qualified men of evangelistic 
 spirit, in which can be taught the foundations of 
 the sciences, that will break down ignorance and 
 superstition, while training men of influence for 
 all positions, preeminently the ministry. With 
 this point of view Dr. and Mrs. Mateer remained 
 to the end of their lives in ardent sympathy. In 
 accord with this also was the judgment of Dr. 
 EUinwood. " I have long regarded Tengchow 
 as the best type of college and the best higher 
 educational work to be found in China; and 
 although there are greater names applied to 
 other institutions, it has seemed to me that the 
 Tengchow School is most worthy of the name 
 of College. I wish we had more funds for its 
 use, but as between a more ambitious plant, and 
 a living, growing, overcrowded institution, I 
 would rather have the latter. A big, healthy boy 
 with short trousers and scanty jacket is much 
 better than a sickly sprig with the best and most 
 ample tailoring." 
 
 In 1882 the mission formally voted to ask the 
 Board to sanction the enlargement of Tengchow 
 
56 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 High School into a college. The Board acceded 
 to this request, and Mr. and Mrs. Hayes were 
 sent out. There was already a good outfit of 
 physical and chemical apparatus, also a fine 
 telescope on the way. The college was most 
 fortunate in the efficient and valuable service of 
 Dr. and Mrs. Hayes, who for eighteen years 
 were connected with it. Dr. Hayes serving as its 
 distinguished president for the last six years of 
 that time. 
 
 Mrs. Mateer's improved health now enabled 
 her to do an increased amount of teaching, of 
 which she writes : "I enjoy it, and we can 
 see the good effect of my being more with the 
 students in the class room. It seems to me that 
 some of my most effective work is done here. I 
 do not refer now so much to the teaching, as to 
 the indirect influence of this daily contact." As 
 the work of the college developed, she highly 
 appreciated the importance of having women 
 teach advanced studies, and the influence this 
 enabled them to exert. When later she suffered 
 much from distress in her head, and found her- 
 self unable to do as much advanced teaching as 
 she longed to do, she always felt that she was 
 missing a great opportunity, and rejoiced when 
 other women could be found to share the college 
 work. In this Mrs. Mateer showed excellent 
 judgment. Nothing is more worthy of remark 
 than the influence of women where they have 
 
d 
 G 
 > 
 
 H 
 
 PI 
 
 r 
 r 
 
 K 
 
HIGHER STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 57 
 
 been teachers in the higher institutions of learn- 
 ing, and it may be questioned whether education 
 in China to-day is not suffering for lack of their 
 influence in the class rooms of the colleges. 
 
 In ways that lay outside the class room Mrs. 
 Mateer always gave special attention to the 
 younger boys, conducting for them a weekly 
 prayer-meeting in which she succeeded in greatly 
 interesting them and awakening their con- 
 sciences. It was a settled custom to conduct by 
 groups an examination of the Sunday morning 
 sermon, each student giving something that had 
 impressed him. Mrs. Mateer always met with 
 the younger boys. " At one time a boy who sat 
 about the middle of the class adopted the plan 
 of saying the other boys had already given all 
 his points. Mrs. Mateer ' caught on,' and next 
 time asked him the first. He, taken quite 
 unaware, foolishly made his usual answer, when 
 all the other boys laughed." From the giving 
 of one thought or sentence they were tactfully 
 led on until they would be able to reproduce 
 much of the sermon. This meeting she closed 
 with prayer. 
 
 Still another plan was to go out to the school, 
 sit in the court, and when the boys had gathered 
 around her, tell them Old Testament and vari- 
 ous other stories. " She could tell a story with 
 an earnestness and life-likeness that held the 
 closest attention, and fixed the lesson on the 
 
S8 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 mind, never to be forgotten ; stories of self- 
 conquest, of persevering industry, of noble and 
 Ciiristlike lives. She believed that every child 
 had something good, and should have a fair 
 opportunity to develop the best possible, to over- 
 come and eradicate by God's help everything 
 mean and sinful." 
 
 Again, visits to the homes of the boys consti- 
 tuted an important and necessary feature of her 
 work, enabling her to touch their lives through 
 relationships formed with their home people. 
 She says : " A visit to the mother gives me a 
 hold on the boy such as nothing else can." 
 Heralded by the schoolboys, her name had gone 
 before, and many mothers and other friends were 
 anxious to see and hear her. They would take 
 her around to all their friends, and crowds would 
 come to see her. Her influence through her 
 medical work in the schools is described else- 
 where. In such ways she came to know the 
 boys thoroughly, their home circumstances, their 
 joys and sorrows, trials and temptations, gain- 
 ing an influence that continued through their 
 college course, and after their graduation. She 
 says : " God has greatly blessed us in some of 
 these young men. In their work I think we, 
 with those at home who support and pray for us, 
 have a glorious reward." 
 
 In the year '86 she writes of the beginning of 
 a missionary society in the college : " We have 
 
HIGHER STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 59 
 
 just organized the Foreign Missionary Society, 
 which promises well. The monthly concert has 
 always been observed here, and we have always 
 tried to interest the boys in the conversion of 
 the world. The Tengchow church has long sup- 
 ported an evangelist, besides helping the poor. 
 All the boys who are members of the church 
 contribute, most of them, for their circumstances, 
 quite liberally ; but this is their first giving to 
 any object beyond our own province. The so- 
 ciety studies the religious conditions of the world 
 by countries, writing essays on the manners, cus- 
 toms, history, religion and the fruits of the re- 
 ligion. Once a year they hold a public meeting 
 for which they prepare something special. This 
 involves much labor for the translator." For 
 many years Mrs. Mateer translated material for 
 this meeting, and for each monthly meeting. 
 Mrs. Hayes and Mrs. Ritchie, who did this in 
 her absence, found it no light task. 
 
 Of one meeting she writes : " Last Wednesday 
 we had an enthusiastic missionary meeting and 
 raised sixty thousand cash for the debt of our 
 Foreign Missionary Board. In this meeting one 
 of the speakers, with Chinese aptness, said : 'In 
 America they think us Chinese about the off- 
 scouring of the earth. Now if we come up to 
 the work, and do our best, it will count for more 
 than if people in better repute had done the 
 same thing. You know if some worthless wretch 
 
6o CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 of whom there seems no ground to hope for any 
 good ceases from some of his badness, every- 
 body begins to praise him ; whereas, his neigh- 
 bor, who has always been upright, does much 
 better things every day, and no one notices him. 
 So it will be with us if we do our duty. The 
 people in the United States will say : " They are 
 not so bad after all. It is worth while still to 
 work for the Chinese." Though what we are 
 able to do is not much, it may be like a drop of 
 pain-killer to the stomach-ache man.' " 
 
 It is interesting to note that about twenty 
 years after the organization of this society, the 
 Presbyterian membership of ten thousand in 
 Shantung organized a missionary society and 
 sent missionaries to a destitute place in another 
 province. Those whom Mrs. Mateer had in- 
 fluenced were prominent in this movement and 
 one of her students is the leader of this band. 
 
 In 1890 Mrs. Ritchie began and continued for 
 four years in the college work for which her late 
 husband had been preparing. She made her 
 home with the Mateers, and gives her first im- 
 pression of Mrs. Mateer : " Never will the mem- 
 ory of that face be dimmed in my mind. Those 
 wonderful dark eyes that beamed with such 
 loving sympathy ! That face so strong, which 
 showed the traces of great suffering, but with 
 all, such wonderful serenity! The impression 
 made was this — if ever I were in great trouble I 
 
HIGHER STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 6i 
 
 should like to have Mrs. Mateer with me." Upon 
 leave-taking to marry Mr. Lingle she says : "It 
 is with great sorrow we separate, for the love of 
 mother and daughter has grown up between us. 
 I feel that whatever I have accomplished or 
 hereafter may accomplish is, humanly speaking, 
 due to the influence and example of Mrs. Mateer." 
 
 During a missionary life of thirty-four years 
 Mrs. Mateer visited the home-land but twice. 
 Dr. and Mrs. Hayes and Mrs. Ritchie made 
 possible her second furlough in '93. Soon after 
 her return to China she attended mission meet- 
 ing in Weihsien, and writes ; " The work seems 
 all the sweeter that we see so many new fruits 
 of our former labors which have come to light 
 while we have been away. There are eighteen 
 of our Tengchow boys here. They made a din- 
 ner for us, and we spent some four hours together 
 very pleasantly. The affectionate attention they 
 pay us is a rich return for our interest in them, 
 and the work they are doing an ample reward 
 for our labors." 
 
 Mrs. Mateer had now lived to see the school 
 and college she had helped to found grown to 
 full stature and regarded as the best educational 
 institution in China. The record for the year 
 '94 shows it had graduated forty-seven in the 
 full course and twenty in a partial course, all 
 being professing Christians. The curriculum of 
 studies had been made fully equal to that of the 
 
62 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 average American college, Chinese classics being 
 substituted for Latin and Greek. Instruction in 
 Western sciences — mathematics, physics, me- 
 chanics, engineering, chemistry and astronomy 
 was quite remarkable for thoroughness. Dr. Ma- 
 teer being an enthusiast in this department, 
 and making, with the assistance of his trained 
 Chinese helpers, much of his own excellent 
 apparatus. These studies were added to only 
 as fast as it was possible to have thorough in- 
 struction in the new departments, thorough- 
 ness being always a cardinal and determining 
 consideration. The total number of students 
 in attendance was about one hundred. Of the 
 forty-seven graduates, ten had studied for the 
 ministry, eleven were college professors at Teng- 
 chow and elsewhere, the remainder were teachers 
 and lay helpers. The college continued to main- 
 tain its high standard of excellence, its graduates 
 also increasing in number from year to year. 
 They were eagerly sought for positions of re- 
 sponsibility, and as soon as advanced govern- 
 ment schools were opened many of the Tengchow 
 graduates were employed as professors, espe- 
 cially in science. As early as 1897, Dr. Mateer 
 writes : " Dr. Martin has engaged for the great 
 university at Peking, started by the young em- 
 peror, twelve of our young men as professors; 
 in fact, all the young professors of Western 
 learning are from our college, save one." 
 
HIGHER STEPS IN COLLEGE-MAKING 63 
 
 In 1904 the college was removed to Weihsien, 
 a place on the railroad, much nearer the centre 
 of the province, and there made the Shantung 
 Union College. The following is an account of 
 those who graduated at Tengchow, but it repre- 
 sents only about half the students, since as many 
 more left before graduation. 
 
 Teachers in church schools 68 
 
 Teachers in government schools 38 
 
 Pastors 17 
 
 Evangelists 16 
 
 Doctors 7 
 
 Engaged in literary work 10 
 
 Engaged in business 9 
 
 Engaged in Y. M. C. A 2 
 
 Engaged in various other occupations 16 
 
 Dead 22 
 
 Total 205 
 
 These men are scattered among thirteen de- 
 nominations, and one hundred schools, in sixteen 
 different provinces. It is not too much to say 
 that the Tengchow College, in itself and through 
 the men whom its training had produced, affected 
 for good the whole education of China. There 
 had come to be a very manifest improvement in 
 methods and a marked change in the favor with 
 which the educational branch of missionary work 
 was regarded by most missionaries. Even whole 
 denominations decided that their policy of neg- 
 lecting educational work had been a mistake, and 
 
64 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 they were proposing to rectify it as soon as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 The feeling cherished by the body of gradu- 
 ates and students concerning Mrs. Mateer's part 
 in the college was fittingly expressed just before 
 her last illness, on her sixtieth birthday. With 
 most imposing ceremony they presented her with 
 a beautiful, decorated silk mantle, bearing all their 
 names, and placed a large title, or sign, in gilt 
 letters over the front door of her home : " Aged 
 Character- Nourishing Mother," or freely trans- 
 lated, " The Aged Mother Who Has Nurtured 
 Noble Men." It was the proudest day of her life 
 when these young men presented her with this 
 token of their loving reverence and esteem. 
 When she was laid to rest, not long after, the 
 beautiful mantle was, at the earnest request of 
 the Chinese, thrown as a pall over her coffin, and 
 the scrolls, banners, and silken canopy were car- 
 ried at the head of the procession, first to the 
 church, and then to the cemetery. 
 
VI 
 
 DIFFICULTIES AND DISCOURAGEMENTS 
 
 T 
 
 AHE foregoing chapter upon Mrs. Mateer's 
 school work leaves much deserving of 
 mention. No one can adequately por- 
 tray the difficulties under which a Christian col- 
 lege was built up in China. Below are given 
 some that confronted Mr. and Mrs, Mateer. 
 Among these the most serious was Mrs. Mateer's 
 lack from the first of vigorous health. This was 
 not owing to climate, for Northern China has one 
 of the best in the world ; it was partly organic, 
 partly due to her experiences on the voyage, but 
 chiefly to the constant and tremendous strain of 
 overwork. 
 
 A fellow missionary says : " She offered herself 
 to the service of her friends with a most generous 
 devotion. I think it is not too much to say that 
 she gave herself a sacrifice for the people to whom 
 she devoted her life. Her sympathy with all who 
 came to her bringing their trials and burdens of 
 sorrow, and her constant thought how she could 
 help and spare others was a burden she gladly 
 bore, but I fear it often made a heavy call upon 
 exhausted nerves and strength." 
 Another says, concerning a visit to the home 
 65 
 
66 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 of Mrs. Mateer : " I learned to sympathize with 
 the disciples who went aside to rest. They were 
 hoping for an uninterrupted communion with 
 Jesus, only to find that the multitudes had out- 
 run them, and were waiting on the other side. 
 Our visit was constantly interrupted by school- 
 boys, teachers, evangelists, Chinese women and 
 children, as well as missionaries, seeking the ad- 
 vice and help never denied them ; yet her brave 
 overwhelmingly busy and cheerful life helped me 
 more than any hour of conversation could have 
 done." 
 
 Still another : " I remember Mrs. Mateer, who 
 all her life in China suffered from ill health and 
 so worked always at a disadvantage, remarking 
 once that she felt like one of the mules in a mule- 
 litter, with raw spots on his back, that had all 
 day to plod along with his fearful load constantly 
 rubbing his sores." 
 
 Once she confesses : " Certainly it would be 
 far easier to be patient with others if one had no 
 aching body or quivering nerves to worry her. 
 Vesterday was cloudy and damp. Were I a 
 heathen I should say it was dedicated to the God 
 of Rheumatism. I heard my classes, and put in 
 the rest of the day groaning." Again : " This 
 year has been a trying one in the school. The 
 chief teacher has done very badly, the younger 
 teacher left after my return from the country, and 
 we have not been able to supply his place. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 67 
 
 Somehow, I have to spend the day in bed oftener 
 and take more rest than I did last winter. I get 
 clear tired of the Chinese and want to go home, 
 but I have never kept that notion for more than 
 one day." The wear of heathen surroundings 
 and the continuous presence of the Chinese 
 pressed heavily upon her. During a few days 
 spent at Dr. Martin's mountain-retreat near Pe- 
 king she writes : " How delightful it is, this pure 
 mountain air, after the dust, filth and smells of 
 the city, — real grass and great acres of it clothing 
 the hillsides to their summits, oaks and maples 
 such as I have not seen for years. I have never 
 before since I came to China been for one whole 
 day out of the sight and hearing of the Chinese. 
 You can imagine how I enjoy this retreat where 
 I can spend a half day at a time entirely alone if 
 I choose." 
 
 The following gives a picture of one day's 
 work : " As I cannot sleep for a while, I will 
 write you. Before I came down-stairs this morn- 
 ing, the house woman came to say that her baby 
 had been sick all night with croup, and asked me 
 to get her some medicine. I quickly gave her 
 some oil and camphor, together with some ipecac, 
 and hurried her off home. A man was waiting to 
 say that the chair-bearers of Mrs. Mateer, going 
 to Weihsien, had struck for higher pay, and the 
 servant who was to have gone with her flew up 
 and had a mind not to go. A lot of time was 
 
68 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 spent in dickering, chair-bearers were secured and 
 a servant hunted up. After breakfast we had 
 Chinese and English letters to send off to Chefoo ; 
 then I went to see the sick baby. I had a hard 
 history lesson to get and two classes to hear and 
 three boys wanted eye medicine, one worm 
 medicine, and six cough medicine, while a coun- 
 try brother wanted three kinds of medicines for 
 his friends, and the chair-bearers all had to have 
 some before they started, and it rained a little, 
 and you may add to all this eight or ten Chinese 
 standing looking on. Finally, at one o'clock Mrs. 
 Mateer got off, and I rushed over to the girls' 
 school to see Mrs. Shaw and get directions as to 
 what needed attention during her visit in the 
 country. There is a nasty scrape on which needs 
 to be settled. We decided that after Mrs. Shaw 
 leaves I am to expel one girl, whip another, and 
 give a good scolding and perhaps whipping to a 
 third. I came home to find my arithmetic class 
 waiting. After delivering messages to a number 
 of pupils, I felt tired, and went up-stairs to see 
 the baby and calm my nerves before supper. 
 My days are not all like this, but simply very 
 busy and very miscellaneous." 
 
 Mrs. Mateer's breakdowns were due to emer- 
 gencies that laid on her additional burdens. 
 The following is one illustration of many such 
 experiences : During the summer of 1867 a 
 horde of robbers from Honan, a remnant of the 
 
DIFFICULTIES 69 
 
 Tai Ping Rebellion, swept through Shantung 
 Province. They produced such wide-spread 
 panic that the country people fled for protection 
 to the high-walled cities, or the mountains. 
 These robbers killed, plundered and burned 
 wherever they went. Tengchow City was alive 
 with those who had taken refuge within its walls. 
 They lodged in every conceivable place. The 
 mission premises were crowded and Kwan Yin 
 Tang was no exception. About seventy people 
 lodged in the court, many of whom were sick. 
 Mrs. Mateer gave her whole time to them. She 
 doctored and nursed the sick, fed the hungry, 
 comforted and preached to all. The great crowds 
 and the exposure caused an epidemic of fever. 
 Among those in the compound there were several 
 cases to whom she gave such careful attention 
 that not one died. Furthermore, her sister was ill 
 during this time. The strain of all of this in 
 addition to her regular work precipitated a 
 breakdown from which she recovered only after 
 a trip to Peking, and later to Shanghai for rest 
 and care. One of the trying phases of this was 
 the loss of her voice so that she could not speak 
 above a whisper, and from this she suffered at 
 various other times. 
 
 Of the missionaries who came one after another 
 to assist in the school, ten died, broke down in some 
 way or other, or withdrew to be married. Each 
 disappointment left the Mateers sorrowful and dis- 
 
70 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 consolate, but they still held on, bent upon trying 
 again. " Pressed on every side yet not straight- 
 ened ; perplexed, yet not unto despair ; pursued, 
 yet not forsaken ; smitten down, yet not des- 
 troyed." 
 
 For many long years the absence of physicians 
 in Tengchow was an embarrassment, and an 
 added burden. In the earlier years of mission 
 work there were but few doctors who responded 
 to the missionary call. Mrs. Mateer's own health 
 suffered from lack of medical care, and from force 
 of necessity she shouldered the burdensome re- 
 sponsibility and work of doctoring the boys, and 
 many outside the school as well. 
 
 The school suffered on account of insufficient as 
 well as old and inferior buildings, some of which 
 must have been unsanitary. During the first 
 years the main school building was used for 
 church purposes, an arrangement that meant in- 
 convenience and confusion. After about thirty 
 years five thousand dollars was put into new 
 school buildings, but this was only a short time 
 before the college was moved to Weihsien. The 
 Mateers were somewhat reconciled to such poor 
 accommodations by the desire to keep their 
 students in touch with the common people among 
 whom it was hoped many of them would labor. 
 They certainly had exceptional success in this di- 
 rection, though the plant would have made a 
 poor showing to a millionaire visitor from 
 
DIFFICULTIES 71 
 
 America. The outcome of the school indicates 
 that in China it is better to err on the side of 
 plainness and simplicity rather than to transplant 
 the elaborate equipment, the pretension, and dis- 
 play of the West. 
 
 The lack of books was serious but this did not 
 daunt these missionaries. They were always 
 champions of the idea that the whole college 
 curriculum could and should be taught in the 
 Chinese language. Drs. Mateer and Hayes pre- 
 pared various scientific and mathematical books 
 which are in extensive use, and taught others 
 from manuscript. Mrs. Mateer assisted her sis- 
 ter, Mrs. Capp, in publishing a mental arith- 
 metic ; but her chief contribution in this field was 
 the preparation of a hymn-and-tune book. She 
 felt the importance of song among the Chinese, 
 who as heathen never sing, but who are fond of 
 music and can be taught to sing well. This book 
 was found necessary and was wrought out in 
 connection with her years of music teaching in 
 the school, and also in the church, where she led 
 the music until she had trained the choir. It is 
 a statement of the principles of vocal music, in 
 the form of questions and answers, followed by 
 a series of progressive exercises, rounds, lays, 
 etc., together with a large collection of church 
 tunes and hymns. It uses a modified system of 
 shaped notes which makes the acquisition of 
 vocal music easier, while not impairing its use for 
 
72 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 the instrument. As this book had a wide circula- 
 tion Mrs. Mateer later revised and stereotyped it. 
 The Chinese teachers at first were far from sat- 
 isfactory. Western education was despised and 
 foreigners hated, so it was almost impossible to 
 secure good helpers. The best were ignorant of 
 all approved pedagogy. For example, they ex- 
 pected the students to do all the work, they ruled 
 entirely by fear, and in the presence of the boys 
 praised the brighter and depreciated the duller 
 ones. Custom called for older men who had 
 spent their lives poring exclusively over the Con- 
 fucian books and had come to revere Confucius 
 as a god. To give up all of that and acknowledge 
 that Confucius was only a poor sinner like them- 
 selves, in need of a Saviour, was shocking. Of 
 course while more eloquent for Confucius than 
 for Christ their religious influence could not be 
 good. It is mentioned that one teacher who was 
 quite satisfactory in the school was later found to 
 be an opium-smoker and gambler, and was com- 
 pelled to leave the city to escape bad debts. 
 After great difficulty another was secured. This 
 man's bodily presence was weak and contempti- 
 ble but he came highly recommended. The boys 
 received him as the frogs did their king, and no 
 wonder I He was about as efficient as a log on 
 a throne. But finally by dint of scolding and 
 threatening he did wake up and get to work with 
 a will. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 73 
 
 In view of all this, it can readily be seen how 
 very important was Mrs. Mateer's close touch 
 with the boys in counteracting such conditions. 
 This state of things is now largely changed, and 
 was so even in later years at Tengchow. Cul- 
 tured Christian teachers of strong character and 
 influence have been trained from childhood. The 
 introduction of Western learning has been de- 
 creed by the emperor and is rapidly becoming 
 popular, while in most cases correct religious 
 ideas more fully control school sentiment. 
 
 The boys, especially in the first years, were 
 heathen and poverty stricken. Even those in 
 China cannot appreciate the adverse conditions 
 under which a school was conducted in the 
 earlier years. The Chinese Church was in its 
 infancy and not far removed from heathenism. 
 The only people willing to brave the odium of 
 sending their sons to a foreigner's school were the 
 very poor, who prized education but could not 
 supply the necessary food, clothing, books and 
 tuition. The desperate poverty of many of the 
 Chinese cannot be adequately described. The 
 furnishing of one of their cheerless homes consists 
 of about the following : a mud brick bed, having 
 on it a little roll of bedding, one table and one 
 little cupboard, a number of large jars and bas- 
 kets of grain, a mill, two spinning-wheels and a 
 basket of dishes, together with a donkey which 
 occupies a corner of the outer room. Coming 
 
74 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 from such homes as these, boys were likely to be 
 wretched specimens both physically and morally. 
 They had probably been half starved and but 
 half clothed, so that they were unfitted for success 
 in study, and some sooner or later had, on ac- 
 count of this, to be dismissed. Indeed a certain 
 number of the brightest and choicest boys on ac- 
 count of insufficient food in early years failed in 
 health and died before completing their studies. 
 
 It is not surprising that skin disease gave 
 trouble in the school especially after vacation. 
 Mrs, Mateer says : "I have found out that three 
 boys have the itch. It was once in the school 
 for three years. I doctored and worried and 
 worked with the boys during all that time. 
 While one was getting well two others were con- 
 tracting it. Finally I threatened to whip the 
 next boy who was found to have newly caught it, 
 and to whip all who had it if not well within a 
 certain time. This proved a specific and worked 
 like a charm, especially when accompanied by a 
 sulphur compound which was so vile-smelling 
 that no one wished to come near the unfortunate 
 who was anointed with it." 
 
 Moral delinquencies found expression in various 
 ways. One boy would accuse the cook of graft 
 in hope of getting the position for a friend ; 
 another would be convicted of stealing ; another 
 would be indolent and worthless ; while still 
 another would become so prominent as a young 
 
DIFFICULTIES ;5 
 
 baptized enthusiast as to claim special liberty in 
 violation of the rules, and being punished for this 
 would sulk, and having lost the glory for religious 
 zeal would leave school. 
 
 Some would contract debts. At one time this 
 became a mania, nearly every boy after specu- 
 lating in borrowing and lending having some 
 outstanding debt. One of Mrs. Mateer's pupils, 
 now an honored teacher, says that when in col- 
 lege he borrowed some money from her, and like 
 many other Chinese who borrowed from the mis- 
 sionaries, had no idea of repaying it. After some 
 months he called to see her. Just as he was 
 leaving, she said to him : " I have been thinking 
 about a passage in the Scripture. I wonder if 
 you have ever thought of it. Please turn to 
 Romans xiii. 8 (' Owe no man anything '), and 
 tell me just what you think it really means." 
 She did it so kindly, he said, that he could not 
 refuse to read it. He read it over, felt the color 
 coming to his cheek, resolved then and there to 
 grind on the hand mill or do anything to earn 
 money, pay the debt, and never allow himself to 
 be again in such an embarrassing position. He 
 carried out his resolve and now after thirty years 
 rejoices in having no debts hanging over his 
 head. 
 
 Another boy had a quarrel with his father, and 
 attempted suicide. He went out on some pre- 
 text and bought a large dose of opium which he 
 
76 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 took as soon as he returned. A student saw him 
 wiping a suspicious-looking powder off his lips, 
 and heard him saying something about "his 
 troubles being soon over," so he reported him. 
 An emetic was mixed, but he refused to take it. 
 It was not the time to coax and parley, so a 
 brisk application of the ruler changed his mind. 
 He was soon past danger, though ill for two or 
 three days. Later, Dr. Mateer gave him a severe 
 whipping in the presence of the school. This 
 was an experiment, but it proved successful, as 
 it brought him to his senses, and nothing more 
 was heard of the wrong done him by saving his 
 life. 
 
 For various reasons boys would run away from 
 the school. Sometimes it was their own idea, 
 sometimes that of their home people. A young 
 missionary who spent his first month in the Mateer 
 home says that he vividly recollects a scene in 
 the front yard, viewed from his window. A 
 schoolboy was being pulled towards the gate by 
 his father, while Mrs. Mateer gripped the boy on 
 the other side to retain him in the school. The 
 struggle was long continued, but finally she got 
 the boy back. 
 
 Another boy became frightened by reason of 
 some wild rumor and ran away. It was said the 
 missionaries had medicine that would bewitch, 
 that some day they would put the boys on board 
 a ship and take them to America, where they 
 
DIFFICULTIES ^^ 
 
 would make silver out of their eyes, opium out 
 of their hearts, and other kinds of medicines out 
 of other parts of their bodies. Many believed 
 such stories, nearly all thought there was some 
 truth in them, and it was not strange this boy 
 had become frightened. He was the son of a 
 wretched opium-smoker, and when he came to 
 school he had not had a suit of clothes for two 
 years, nor any protection from the cold of winter 
 except an old ragged rug, nor had he been be- 
 yond the miserable court where he lived. An 
 older brother and also a sister had been at the 
 school telling him these rumors that frightened 
 him, and making plans for his escape, which was 
 soon effected. Mrs. Mateer says : " After an 
 early dinner I went in my chair to pay the mar- 
 ried sister a visit, having been assured that she 
 knew where the boy was. I told her I had come 
 for her brother, and that she must find him. 
 Over and over she averred that she was not his 
 sister, but only his cousin. I thought that even a 
 Chinese woman could not lie so, and concluded 
 I must be in the wrong place, so I sent for the 
 school steward who assured me that this was the 
 home of the sister. 
 
 " When I became tired, I took out my book 
 and read to show that I was in earnest and 
 meant to wait for the boy, but this did not make 
 much impression. The neighbors came in to 
 assure me that she was only the boy's cousin, 
 
;8 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 and that he had not been to see her for months. 
 We talked ' doctrine,' and we talked about many 
 other things, but she showed no signs of yielding. 
 Whenever the conversation flagged I took up 
 my book. After a long time she sent for the 
 older brother. He could lie as glibly as she, but 
 not so shrewdly. I sent for my supper, which I 
 shared with my hostess and her son. Then I 
 lighted my candle and returned to my book. 
 The brother lay down on a pile of fuel and was 
 soon snoring. The woman got sick, grew rapidly 
 worse, and told her son to run for some of her 
 friends, for she was sick to the point of death. 
 She began to scream, but her brother snored on. 
 I stopped reading long enough to suggest a dose 
 of soda to relieve her stomach. I did not get 
 frightened and she did not die, but was soon 
 quite well. 
 
 " Finally I concluded that I had enough of it, 
 and sent the steward to suggest to Mr. Mateer 
 that he come and take the brother prisoner. 
 This he did, and about nine o'clock my visit 
 ended. The woman was as polite to me all 
 afternoon as if I had been the most distinguished 
 and welcome guest, never for a moment betray- 
 ing what I knew was the feeling of her heart. 
 Even after my husband had dragged her brother 
 off to prison, she did not forget her politeness, 
 but accompanied me out to the chair, expressing 
 regrets that I had been put to so much trouble. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 79 
 
 We kept the prisoner for four or five days, when 
 he got tired and sent for his uncle, who soon 
 found the runaway." Nothing but an unfailing 
 sense of humor could have carried Mrs. Mateer 
 through this and many similar experiences. 
 
 The kitchen for the boys repeatedly produced a 
 crop of troubles. On the day the school first 
 opened the cook who had been employed de- 
 clined to undertake the job. The one secured, 
 instead, grew tired of the boys, and after the 
 first month could not be persuaded to remain. 
 " In April there was a quarrel about the rice. 
 The boys complained that the food was not so 
 good as it should be for the allowance. The 
 cook said he used all the money for the food. 
 After investigation a regular bill of fare was 
 made. The boys were scolded, and one whipped, 
 when once more things settled down peacefully." 
 
 After a few years it is recorded that for more 
 than a year there had been much dissatisfaction 
 with the cook, especially on the part of the 
 larger boys. He was suspicious and censori- 
 ous, making no allowance for the faults and 
 folly of youth. The boys were equally suspi- 
 cious and took no account of his cares and 
 weariness. The suggestion was made that if the 
 boys had a little more employment and some 
 experience of the care and labor required to 
 provide their food, they would have more for- 
 bearance and less time to make trouble. Ac- 
 
8o CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 cordingly, the experiment was for a time adopted 
 of having the boys buy their own provisions, 
 saw the wood, carry the water, set the table, etc. 
 They were delighted. The cook was not fault- 
 less, but the boys were too anxious to make the 
 new plan succeed to find fault about small things. 
 The cook would occasionally be accused of ap- 
 propriating money, and the boy at the head of 
 the family would now and then abstract some, 
 but these difficulties grew less as time went on. 
 
 Mrs. Mateer had frequent opportunity to ex- 
 ercise tact in getting over rough places. On 
 one occasion her cook bought a three-stringed 
 fiddle and kept sawing away monotonously and 
 discordantly to her great annoyance. At last 
 some particularly excruciating strains brought 
 her out to ask him what such a fiddle cost. 
 " Why do you ask ? " said he. " Because I want 
 to buy one." " I will go out at once on the 
 street and purchase one for you." " No," said 
 Mrs. Mateer, " I think I should like to buy this 
 one." " Why desire this one specially?" " I want 
 to buy it because I think it should have a rest." 
 
 National dishirbances twice broke up the school 
 for a time. In June, 1870, the Tientsin massacre 
 of Catholics, and the burning of their property 
 occurred. The country was filled with rumors 
 of plottings in other directions. The murmur' 
 ings increased and the Chinese in large numbers 
 caught at the idea, always just below the surface 
 
DIFFICULTIES 8i 
 
 in China, of driving out the hated foreigners. 
 It was decided that the missionaries should go 
 to Chefoo on a war vessel, so it was finally 
 necessary to dismiss the school. Mrs. Mateer 
 wrote to her sister : " Our poor boys — when will 
 we get them all back again? It seems to me 
 that one of the ends of this day's trial to us is 
 to teach us to live more day by day. We were 
 settled down there in a good climate, in a com- 
 fortable home, with at present very good health, 
 plenty and more than plenty of delightful work, 
 which by God's blessing had been prospering 
 more and more year by year. Of course we 
 know this is not our abiding place, but it was 
 hard to realize it. I felt that I was loving the 
 work for the work's sake, forgetful of the great 
 end of our work and the Master who appointed 
 it. What I knew not how to remember, God 
 knew. We cannot see at once the whole of the 
 room we are standing in. We do not get the 
 proper impression of a painting when too near 
 it. So perhaps we have our work taken from us 
 for a while that we may see beyond the work to 
 its great end, or rather we are driven away from 
 the work to show that the work is permanent, — 
 we are the accidents." 
 
 During the Japanese war of 1895, Tengchow 
 was bombarded as a ruse to divert the Chinese 
 from Wei-hai-wei, the fortified harbor taken by 
 the Japanese. This repeated bombardment in 
 
82 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 this sleepy old town of course caused great ex- 
 citement. The boys had just gone home on 
 their New Year's vacation, but were detained 
 from returning for about one month after the 
 time of term opening. The women in alarm 
 rushed to the foreign compound in great num- 
 bers. Mrs. Mateer, together with a few others, 
 did not go to Chefoo, refusing to leave her 
 husband and the Christians. She comforted and 
 quieted the crowds who came, herself rising into 
 the serenity of an all-conquering faith. Her 
 manner and her message while the cannon-balls 
 were flying over and lighting near made a pro- 
 found impression. Dr. and Mrs. Mateer thus 
 helped care for the Christians and talk to the 
 crowd during the day, and went to be with the 
 girls in the school during the night, the girls not 
 being able to get away to their homes for some 
 time after the bombardment. 
 
 In the enduring and curing of all these various 
 adverse conditions there is the shining out of 
 Mrs. Mateer's splendid qualities of mind and 
 heart. Her self-control, her grace, her long, 
 steadfast devotion to duty, both under the diffi- 
 cult conditions of the daily routine and in the 
 hour of imminent danger, mark her as one more 
 example of the splendid fruitage of the Puritan 
 home. 
 
VII 
 FRUIT GATHERING 
 
 AS former chapters show, this school work 
 was by no means all discouragement. 
 Even from the first the boys were not 
 all, nor always, so disappointing, while the re- 
 ligious character and moral tone constantly im- 
 proved. As early as '67 Mrs. Mateer records ; — 
 " At the close of the previous year the Christian 
 boys were much impressed with the injury done 
 to the school and the cause of Christ by the bad 
 conduct of the Li boys, and the heresy of the old 
 teacher. They entered into a concert of prayer 
 for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on their 
 teachers, on their own hearts, and on the school 
 at large. It was begun for a month but was 
 continued during the whole year." Thus condi- 
 tions improved throughout the history of the 
 school, until after thirty years nearly all the one 
 hundred undergraduates and all the sixty-seven 
 graduates were professing Christians. 
 
 The founders of the school always planned to 
 furnish a thorough education in the Chinese 
 language as well as in Western branches, so that 
 graduates would be well fitted for various im- 
 portant positions, and hence none would enter 
 
 83 
 
84 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 the ministry unless really called of God. In this 
 they were eminently successful. Many turned 
 to other vocations, but as many became pastors 
 as the people at that time were ready to call. 
 The splendid consecration of our Shantung pas- 
 tors is shown in the comparatively low salaries 
 they are willing to accept from the Chinese 
 Church. Some of them would be able to com- 
 mand from five to ten times as much in other vo- 
 cations. Pastors in Western countries are seldom 
 called upon to make such sacrifices. All this is 
 eloquent in praise of those who projected and 
 successfully wrought out an educational policy 
 in Shantung. 
 
 In 1890, five graduates were ordained to the 
 ministry. For years they had been thoroughly 
 tested as teachers and evangelists. It was fitting 
 that Dr. Mateer should be moderator of this 
 presbytery, and not strange that the tears ran 
 down his face as he laid his hands upon their 
 heads. Mrs. Mateer's face showed her joy in the 
 consecration of these " sons." They had come 
 as little heathen boys, and for a quarter of a cen- 
 tury she had given them the best she knew. 
 
 There would have been six to be ordained had 
 not one died a few days before his ordination, 
 but his earnest, consecrated life had already borne 
 much fruit, and his story is one of deep interest. 
 " Hing Dao Wing was a member of the very first 
 class, gathered from out a purely heathen world, 
 
FRUIT GATHERING 85 
 
 at the opening of the Tengchow school in 1864. 
 Neither these boys nor their parents had ever 
 heard of the true God or of Jesus Christ, or of the 
 Bible or of a church or of a heaven or hell. The 
 parents would not sign an indenture covering 
 more than five or six years. This was not strange, 
 for the people did not know much about the 
 missionaries, and the wild rumors already referred 
 to were half believed by many. 
 
 " In consequence Hing Dao Wing was not al- 
 lowed to return after his sixth year. However, 
 he had become a professing Christian. The very 
 first New Year visit home he hid, being willing 
 to risk a severe beating for hiding rather than 
 worship idols. 
 
 " Soon after joining the church he promised to 
 give one thousand cash, equal to one dollar, to 
 help in sending an evangelist to preach in his 
 village. He never had twenty-five cents a year 
 pocket money. When asked, 'Where will you 
 get one thousand cash to give ? ' he answered, 
 ' I shall grind and earn it.' That meant that he 
 would walk round and round a hand mill, push- 
 ing the millstone by a handle, till he had ground 
 eighteen bushels of corn. This he did and paid 
 the money promptly. 
 
 " A few years after he was taken out of school, 
 his aunt died. According to Chinese custom all 
 of her sons and nephews must go to the temple 
 to pray for her and also bow down at her coffin 
 
86 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 and worship her spirit. Not to do this would be 
 a great offense to her, so his friends were de- 
 termined to make Ring Dao Wing perform this 
 worship. He had grown so cold by this time 
 that he consented to bow down at the coffin, 
 quieting his conscience by refusing to go to the 
 temple. For this worship, and for working on 
 the Sabbath, he was suspended from church-mem- 
 bership. We were sorely grieved about him, for 
 he had seemed a sincere Christian, and we had 
 fondly hoped that some day he would be a min- 
 ister. We did not give him up but kept on pray- 
 ing that God would make him a good man, bring 
 him back to school and call him to be a minister. 
 
 " Having tried in vain to obtain his people's 
 consent to his returning to school, finally after 
 six years he took the law into his own hands and 
 came back to finish his studies and work for his 
 Saviour. He studied diligently and became a 
 fine scholar, teaching a year in the college. But 
 he felt called to preach the Gospel as an evangel- 
 ist, so although highly prizing him as a teacher, 
 we could not object to his going. 
 
 " He preached at thirty Christian stations 
 under Dr. Nevius for two years, then entered the 
 theological class. During this time of study he 
 spent five months of each year in evangelistic 
 work in the Weihsien field. One fall, in company 
 with one of the missionaries, he preached in two 
 hundred villages, going to eight or ten daily. 
 
FRUIT GATHERING 87 
 
 This was hard work. Often scholars came out 
 and scowled at the crowd on the street so that 
 all dispersed. The sentiment was so strong 
 against the foreigner that the villages would not 
 supply a place to rest at noon, nor warm water 
 to make tea, so these two ate Chinese hardtack 
 and a turnip out along the road in a place 
 sheltered from the cold wind. 
 
 " Through all this Mr. Hing was unfailingly 
 cheerful and always ready for all the discourage- 
 ment and weariness connected with this campaign. 
 He was an attractive and consecrated man and 
 his death was sorely mourned by many." 
 
 Our Shantung pastors are forceful, evangelical 
 preachers. They are bright, enterprising and en- 
 thusiastic in their work and the churches under 
 their care are rapidly growing in numbers and 
 intelligence. Rev. Ting Li Mei ' is an example of 
 the Tengchow students who have given their 
 lives to the ministry. His family was of some 
 standing. They had planned for their unusually 
 gifted son prominence in government employ 
 and were bitterly opposed to his entering the 
 Christian ministry. However the Spirit of God 
 prevailed and in due time he became the pastor 
 of a congregation. The Boxer outbreak over- 
 took him, but he stayed with his flock. As the 
 leader, he was seized, beaten and left for dead, 
 but like Paul he revived. Again they ordered 
 
 ' Also written Ding Li Mei. 
 
88 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 him beaten because he would not deny his 
 Saviour, and he was rescued by the missionaries 
 through the influence of the United States 
 Consul, Mr. Fowler, with the governor, Yuan 
 Shi Kai. 
 
 He built up different congregations, but his 
 strength of character, together with his great 
 faith and ardent zeal, led him away from a single 
 congregation to the conduct of revival meetings 
 in many places in North China. Thousands have 
 been quickened and thousands brought into the 
 kingdom through his preaching and prayers. 
 He knows nothing of the modern uncertainty 
 and hesitation in his intensely earnest and inter- 
 esting presentation of the great spiritual truths 
 of sin and salvation, while his prayers move the 
 very throne of God. 
 
 Mr. Ting writes the following : " I once asked 
 Mrs. Mateer to loan me some money. ' For 
 what purpose ? ' said she. ' To buy a small coat,' 
 I replied. She asked when and how I purposed 
 to repay her, which I could not answer. ' Better 
 allow me to propose a plan. You come daily 
 and care for my flowers. I will loan you the 
 money and credit you with the work. You will 
 thus be free from debt, and I shall have my 
 flowers cared for.' So wise was all her helpful- 
 ness. 
 
 " One day she gave me nine hundred cash, 
 asking me to take it to a friend of hers who 
 
TING LI MEI 
 
FRUIT GATHERING 89 
 
 lived in the ' Water-City,' north of the city proper, 
 in the ninth house from the south end, on the 
 street facing the west bank of the river. Follow- 
 ing these minute directions, I found Mrs. Mateer's 
 friend, who proved to be extremely poor. More- 
 over, he was partially paralyzed ; his eyes, mouth, 
 hands and feet were twisted, and he walked with 
 great difficulty as he went about begging for 
 food. This unfortunate Mrs. Mateer considered 
 her friend, and sent me specially to visit him. 
 Did she not do this to teach me to have pity on 
 the poor ? Certainly what sympathy I have with 
 such owes much to her. 
 
 " When Mrs. Mateer was on her death-bed, I 
 went to her room for a final leave-taking of my 
 dear teacher. As I knelt to pray by her side, I 
 was overcome with grief. Before I left she took 
 my hand in hers and said, ' I am going to heaven 
 first, and shall wait for you. I hope you will 
 lead a great many people to heaven.' These 
 words sank deep into my heart, and they are a 
 great stimulus to me in my work of soul-saving " 
 
 At present Evangelist Ting is going about 
 among the schools and colleges of China, holding 
 revival meetings and enlisting volunteers for the 
 work of the gospel ministry. He is commonly 
 recognized as China's leading evangelist. But 
 Mr. Ting is not the only one marvellously changed 
 and made mighty for God in evangelistic work ; 
 for in like manner, through the influence of 
 
90 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 another great-hearted, deeply pious, and earnest 
 Christian woman, the late Dr. Li, who was 
 formerly a medical student in the government 
 school in Tientsin, became a prominent evangelist 
 in Central China. Such men are the " potency 
 and promise " of the great things that are going 
 to make the world wonder and the angels rejoice, 
 while at the same time they demonstrate the 
 supreme influence cultured Christian women 
 may have in moulding the students of China. 
 
 Of the graduates of Tengchow College who 
 have gone into business, Liu Shu San is a good 
 example. As a little boy out of a poor family, 
 he entered the Presbyterian Academy at Chefoo, 
 and later went to Tengchow. After graduation 
 he taught in the Chefoo Academy. His salary 
 was not high, but by strict economy he managed 
 to lay by money with which he bought land, 
 building small houses upon it. At that time 
 there was a " boom " in Chefoo, and he, being 
 wise in his investments, accumulated consider- 
 ible property. Later when T'singtau was opened 
 by the Germans, and a railroad put across the 
 province, he saw that T'singtau was the coming 
 place, and at an early date transferred his invest- 
 ments there, where he is now a prosperous real 
 estate man. He is prominent in business circles 
 ind by his exemplary Christian life is a power 
 :or good. In various ways he is advancing the 
 Christian cause. Out of his income he has con- 
 
LIU SHU SAN 
 
FRUIT GATHERING 91 
 
 tributed to the college the full amount of his own 
 board and incidental expenses. Towards the 
 building of the new church at Chefoo he was a 
 prominent contributor. In T'singtau he himself 
 managed the building of the church and parson- 
 age, contributing largely to them. He was 
 much distressed at seeing the boys from the 
 country falling into sin on coming to the port, so 
 took the lead in organizing a Y. M. C. A , and is now 
 himself paying the whole salary of the secretary. 
 He is also very liberal in helping many needy 
 persons both inside the church and out. A part 
 of his prosperity is due to his great trustworthi- 
 ness of character, on the strength of which he 
 was able to borrow money at low rate of interest 
 in the beginning of the " boom " at T'singftau 
 and so realize handsomely on his investments. 
 
 But although many have thus been engaged 
 in evangelistic and pastoral work, and a few have 
 gone into business, most of the Tengchow grad- 
 uates have become professors in Christian and 
 government schools in many provinces of China. 
 Four of them are now in chief charge of the gov- 
 ernment schools in Yuinnan, the most southwest 
 of the eighteen provinces. As the hope of 
 China's education must be in Christian teachers, 
 it is desirable that many be prepared in schools 
 similar to Tengchow, and employed by the gov- 
 ernment in the new education. Such positions 
 bring what in China are large salaries, attended 
 
92 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 by great temptations. Therefore students must 
 have much personal attention by consecrated 
 workers or they will not stand the strain. 
 
 There follows here one of many life stories of 
 Chinese professors that might be given, illustrat- 
 ing the power of Mrs. Mateer's life and personal 
 touch. 
 
 Sung Fu Wei's mother had been left mother- 
 less in her childhood and thus suffered the 
 greatest calamity that can befall a Chinese girl, 
 she had no one to teach her to bind her feet 1 In 
 fact, like Topsy, she just "growed" and was all 
 her life an unmistakable representative of the 
 " great unwashed." His father was a man of 
 weak character and addicted to gambling. When 
 Sung Fu Wei was a lad of twelve, he and his 
 mother first heard the Gospel preached in their 
 village, and heard it gladly. He soon entered 
 the Tengchow school. Years afterwards when 
 one of his pupils read an essay upon good com- 
 ing out of evil, Mr. Sung said, " Yes, God can 
 bring good out of even such an evil as gambling. 
 It was gambling that sent me to school. My 
 father gambled and my mother was so afraid I 
 would learn it that when she heard of this school 
 she gave my father no rest until he brought me 
 here." His talents and diligence soon raised 
 him to the head of his class and endeared him to 
 his teachers. When examined for admission to 
 the church and asked why he became a Christian, 
 
SUNG FU WEI AND FAMILY 
 
FRUIT GATHERING 93 
 
 he replied, " Because Jesus has loved me so much 
 as to die for me." 
 
 Two years after graduation he returned to 
 Tengchow and was made professor of mathemat- 
 ics, teaching trigonometry, surveying, navigation, 
 analytical geometry and calculus, and teaching 
 them well. He was Dr. Mateer's most efficient 
 helper in preparing his mathematical series for 
 the press, being not only well versed in the sub- 
 ject as taught in western lands, but having be- 
 stowed much labor on the Chinese mathematical 
 works. 
 
 Mr. Sung was not more distinguished for his 
 talents and attainments than for his good judg- 
 ment, his faithfulness as a teacher, his earnest 
 piety, and the real missionary spirit in all his 
 work. When only twenty-three years old he was 
 elected an elder in the church and maintained in 
 high degree the respect and confidence of all. 
 He often led the weekly prayer-meeting, and in 
 the absence of his pastor sometimes led the Sun- 
 day services. His addresses and sermons were 
 always clear, logical, Scriptural and helpful, and 
 showed a deep work of grace in his heart. 
 
 Notwithstanding his ability he was quiet and 
 unassuming. He once told his pupils how very 
 large he felt when as a lad he went home for a 
 vacation after passing his first examination in 
 arithmetic. Said he : " All my friends were 
 wondering at my knowledge of mathematics, and 
 
94 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 I thought myself about the wisest man in the 
 country. Here I have been studying and teach- 
 ing mathematics ever since, and only learn better 
 every year how much there is I do not know " 
 
 He valued highly his school privileges. He 
 was accustomed to say that Christian boarding 
 schools in heathen lands advance the cause of 
 Christ by at least three or four generations ; 
 first, by raising up reliable men and women as 
 helpers in building up the church, and second, 
 by setting an example of the Christian training 
 of children. Said he, " It is not enough that we 
 see how the missionaries train their children ; 
 we need to see the effects of Christian training 
 on Chinese children." 
 
 After all, the most admirable trait in Mr. Sung's 
 character was his patient endurance of trials such 
 as fall to the lot of few men. His mother's un- 
 tidy house and peculiar ways were always a 
 source of mortification to him, and her years of 
 ill health a cause of constant anxiety ; but he 
 had the comfort of seeing in her much evidence 
 that she was a child of God. His father was 
 for years halting between the church and the 
 gambling table, at which he finally wasted the 
 whole of his little property. He had reformed 
 and fallen so often that when he died after a 
 year and a half of good behavior and apparently 
 sincere repentance, his son could not but feel a 
 deep and grateful sense of relief. Notwithstand- 
 
FRUIT GATHERING 95 
 
 ing their faults, Mr. Sung's conduct towards his 
 parents and his words about them always ex- 
 emplified the spirit of the command, " Honor thy 
 father and thy mother." 
 
 While yet a schoolboy, he brought his only 
 sister to school and provided her clothing. Be- 
 sides carrying on his own studies, he earned the 
 money to do this and also to clothe himself, by 
 teaching algebra and geometry in the Baptist 
 school. Shortly after graduation he married a 
 Christian Chinese girl of great personal attrac- 
 tions. Her health soon became seriously im- 
 paired and she continued to be a great sufferer. 
 This was blessed to her growth in some graces, 
 but made her irritable and exacting, and she was 
 always selfish and extravagant. Her husband's 
 income never exceeded seventy dollars a year. 
 On her account he denied himself everything but 
 the barest necessities of life. He never neglected 
 his wife for his work, and he never neglected his 
 work for his wife, but spent himself freely for 
 both. His mind was always busy with work or 
 plans for his pupils or in self-improvement for 
 their sakes, and his heart always burdened with 
 solicitude for his poor wife and sympathy with 
 her sufferings, which the most assiduous medical 
 attention failed to remove ; she was neither brave 
 nor thoughtful enough to conceal what he was 
 powerless to relieve. 
 
 No one ever heard him complain of his bur- 
 
96 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 dens or saw him shed tears over his own griefs. 
 He had tears for others' sorrows but not for his 
 own. When, during a very unhealthy season, 
 he was smitten by dysentery, that deadly foe to 
 human life in Tengchow, he trusted to his vigor- 
 ous constitution, which had never before known 
 a severe illness, to throw it off. True to his in- 
 stincts he was too busy for others to take thought 
 of himself till the disease had taken such a hold 
 on him that the most careful attention of his 
 physician and care of his friends availed nothing 
 to check its course. One short, sharp conflict, 
 and his toils and trials were ended forever. The 
 good and faithful servant entered into the joy of 
 his Lord. 
 
 Dr. Mills, his pastor, says in connection with 
 his death : " In some of the highest manifesta- 
 tions of mental power, the Chinese are fully our 
 equals. When thoroughly controlled by Chris- 
 tian principle they are quite as disinterested as 
 we are. Unemotional as they seem to us, they 
 are capable of the rarest self-sacrifice." It is 
 worthy of remark that Christianity could bestow 
 within the compass of a single life, and that the 
 first generation removed from heathenism, not 
 only such Christlike character, but the changed, 
 considerate, and even chivalrous attitude towards 
 mother and sister and delicate wife, which is 
 among the finest fruits of Christian civilization. 
 
VIII 
 
 MEDICAL WORK AND INFLUENCE 
 
 A GREAT deal of medical work devolved 
 upon Mrs. Mateer. This was partly an 
 unwelcome necessity. There were many 
 years when the station had no missionary doctor 
 and the Chinese doctors were little better than 
 none. Those who live in Christian countries fail 
 to appreciate that everything worth while in their 
 civilization is a by-product of the Gospel. In 
 heathen countries, there is no relief even from 
 toothache. One missionary was in the habit of 
 pulling a lot of teeth upon entering a village 
 and thus getting the people in good humor for 
 the hearing of the Gospel. 
 
 Mrs. Mateer's Christian sympathies could not 
 resist the many appeals for relief from suffering. 
 She came to consider what she did in this way as 
 an effective means for influencing people in a 
 spiritual way. Mrs. Fanny Corbett Hays says : 
 " Never lived a missionary who more lovingly 
 and conscientiously entered into the details of the 
 common daily life of the people who pressed 
 upon her. Who that has seen her, as she every 
 morning met the ailing and sick students in her 
 little medicine closet under the stairs, can ever 
 
 97 
 
98 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 forget the sight ? She had great skill in diag- 
 nosing and treating the simple ailments of the 
 boys, who came on an average of ten a day, and 
 she prevented many a serious illness by her 
 timely remedies. But she told me that she did 
 not reach her highest purpose in her little dis- 
 pensary when she cured the diseases of the body, 
 being more concerned to treat the homesick boy, 
 to detect sorrow and repentance, and to give 
 medicine for the soul." 
 
 In the long and severe illnesses of the students, 
 she prescribed for and nursed them with all the 
 tender care of a mother. She prepared their 
 food and saw that it was given at the proper time. 
 She was never too weary nor the hour too late to 
 see a sick pupil. A former Tengchow boy writes 
 as follows : 
 
 "Whenever I was sick, Mrs. Mateer spent 
 much time and heart upon me. After graduation 
 I went to a distant place leaving my wife and 
 son at Tengchow. When the cholera was 
 raging there an old man who lived in the same 
 yard with my family had one day buried twenty 
 cholera victims. When he came home in the 
 evening my wife prepared him some food. My 
 son took the cholera from him. His mother was 
 in great distress and sent the old man for Mrs 
 Mateer. She and Dr. Mateer were at prayers, 
 just before retiring. She came quickly and 
 worked all night with the boy. In the early 
 
MEDICAL WORK AND INFLUENCE 99 
 
 dawn he was better and gradually recovered. 
 Recently he has passed successfully the examina- 
 tion for students going to America at govern- 
 ment expense. Such kindness we can never 
 forget." (This he wrote with tears streaming 
 down his face.) 
 
 " Mrs. Mateer had this same interest in all her 
 boys, Whenever any one was absent from 
 prayer-meeting or church she was concerned lest 
 he might be sick and went at once to see. She 
 cared also for the sick and the poor not only 
 among the Christians, but the non-Christians as 
 well. My wife in going around preaching found 
 an old couple in dire distress with no one to care 
 for them. When Mrs, Mateer heard of them she 
 gave them a thousand cash, bought a coat for 
 the old man and some grain. Later she gave 
 them money to use as capital in buying grain to 
 grind and sell so that they might help themselves. 
 When another old man who sold sweet potatoes 
 had a serious sore on his leg, Mrs. Mateer re- 
 peatedly gave him medicine and money. These 
 are but a few of her manifold kindnesses." 
 
 Below is given a single instance of her expe- 
 riences in the medical work. She says : "This 
 morning a little boy, to whom I gave some eye- 
 water a few days ago and who evidently consid- 
 ered that a sufficient introduction, came to the 
 door. His hair was neatly brushed and his hands 
 and clothes were clean. He was sent, he said, 
 
100 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 to ask the lady to go see a sick person in the 
 west suburb. I decided at once to go, as it is a 
 neighborhood to which we have not hitherto had 
 access. I found the patient to be a young woman 
 suffering from scrofula. The neighbors soon be- 
 gan crowding in so that not only the house but 
 the court was filled, and numerous were the ap- 
 plications for medicine. 
 
 " After disposing of such cases as well as I 
 could, I began to preach or talk ' doctrine,' as we 
 say here. I began about the Heavenly Ruler, 
 whom they worship once every year, and who is 
 the true God as far as they have retained any 
 knowledge of Him ; but I failed to secure any 
 one's attention. Then I began about the soul, 
 by asking what becomes of it after death, but with 
 no better success, though they are usually curious 
 on this point. I also tried the story of our first 
 parents, and the worship of idols, but still without 
 any success, though I have scarcely ever before 
 known a case where one or the other of the last 
 two subjects would not for a while, at least, se- 
 cure attention. No one would listen to anything 
 but my answers to their numerous questions 
 about the ' foreign country,' as every place out- 
 side of China is called. I left, greatly discour- 
 aged by the fruitlessness of my visit, but with a 
 silent prayer that after all it might not be quite 
 in vain. 
 
 " I had not gone far, when I heard some one 
 
MEDICAL WORK AND INFLUENCE loi 
 
 call, and looking back saw an elderly woman 
 follow me. She said she wanted to ask about 
 the true God and how to worship Him. We sat 
 down by a well. I remembered how my Saviour 
 had ' sat by the well ' and talked of the ' water of 
 life.' She told me much that she had heard from 
 Mrs. Crawford of the Baptist Mission, and then, 
 folding her hands and bowing her head, she re- 
 peated what she could remember of a little prayer. 
 She added, ' I am an old woman and have time 
 to learn of this " doctrine," and I think if there is 
 any way for my soul to go to heaven when I die, 
 it will be a very good thing, so I wish to learn 
 it. Unfortunately, I have forgotten much that 
 Mrs. Crawford told me. If you will just write 
 out some directions for me, and a prayer, then I 
 could get some one to read to me when I forget.' 
 Her idea evidently was that there were certain 
 things for her to do, and a prayer she must repeat 
 a certain number of times, and she would be 
 saved. Great as her mistake was, I was delighted 
 to find a woman who having heard only once 
 knew even this much, and cared to know more. 
 I explained to her something of the nature of 
 prayer, and of our obligations to God, and prom- 
 ised her a written prayer and a book. She prom- 
 ised to come to see me soon and bring her sister 
 with her. 
 
 "While we were talking, a ragged, dirty 
 woman, carrying a sick child, came out and 
 
I02 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 begged me to go to a house near by where all 
 the family were sick of typhoid fever. They 
 had neither food nor medicine and no money. 
 They lived in an old stone hut which stands in a 
 miserably dirty court, its clay floor being more 
 than a foot lower than the ground outside and its 
 walls and ceiling blackened by the smoke of 
 many years. The one door was broken off its 
 hinges and lay in the court. 
 
 " Making my way through the dirt and rub- 
 bish of the outer room, I looked into the sick- 
 room. Oh, what a sight ! On their kang (brick 
 bed), about seven feet long by three wide, lay a 
 man, his wife, two boys nine and eleven years 
 old, all in a high fever, and an infant two days 
 old. There they had lain for days, in mid- 
 summer. The single small window was papered 
 so as to exclude every particle of air and light. 
 The woman was in great distress and somewhat 
 delirious. A miserable beggar woman, hired for 
 about two cents a day, was the only person who 
 went near them. I asked if there were no 
 neighbors who would take the baby home and 
 care for it until the mother was able to do so. 
 The man answered with an astonished look, 
 ' We have no such custom ! ' 
 
 "I could not restrain my indignation that, 
 among a people who pretend to such high 
 civilization, no one could be found to show kind- 
 ness to people in such distress, because they were 
 
MEDICAL WORK AND INFLUENCE 103 
 
 of the lowest and poorest class. In all this great 
 city and among many relatives, neighbors and 
 friends, they had none. I hurried home to pro- 
 cure some food and medicine which I sent them ; 
 and this evening the mother is quietly sleeping, 
 and the others less miserable. 
 
 " When starting home my tidy friend of the 
 morning came running after me, and insisted on 
 escorting me home. He had divested himself 
 of every stitch of clothing, and though his hands 
 and face were still not very dirty, it must have been 
 months since the rest of him was in clean water. 
 It is scarcely necessary to say that I declined his 
 offer." Throughout the years such experiences 
 as the above were of common occurrence. 
 
 Mrs. Mateer's medical work during the famine 
 of 1878 was somewhat special. " Since the 
 spring opened we have been much occupied with 
 the famine sufferers. No day passes without 
 calls for food and medicine, and some days are 
 entirely filled with the work. I began to keep a 
 list of the principal cases but stopped at the 
 fourteenth of regular typhoid fever. It was too 
 much trouble to keep the record. I suppose that 
 at least sixty fever cases owe to me all the medicine 
 they got, and to my directions all the nursing. 
 One of the first symptoms in every case was 
 nausea, and usually the preparatory medicine 
 required was a dose of santonin, with oil and 
 lard and laudanum. This involved not only 
 
104 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 measuring out the medicine, but finding a 
 cup to put it in, securing its return, making a 
 , mustard plaster to keep the medicine down till it 
 had time to take effect, providing disinfectants 
 and seeing that they were used, sending food for 
 the patient and fuel with which to cook it. 
 
 " One man came with two dreadful sores. 
 They had opened and should have been discharg- 
 ing freely, but according to their custom he had 
 plastered them over with a stiff, sticky plaster and 
 was suffering intensely. I gave him a basin of 
 warm water and a sponge with which he suc- 
 ceeded in about half an hour in getting them rea- 
 sonably cleaned off, revealing four great patches 
 of proud flesh. I poulticed with bread and told 
 the man he must change the poultice in the even- 
 ing. Fearing he would not do so I offered him 
 the bread. He said he was sleeping with a friend 
 and had not the face to have anything done for 
 him. Said I, ' You have not the face to ask your 
 friend to make a poultice, but you can come here 
 and ask the " foreign devils " for anything you 
 want ? ' ' Exactly so,' said he, with the utmost 
 simplicity. Said I, 'Come back this evening 
 and I will make you fresh poultices.' In two 
 days he was sufficiently relieved to go to Chefoo 
 to a physician. 
 
 " Tso Li Wen, our new teacher, plays surgeon 
 for me and when we both get beyond our depth, 
 we call on Mr. Mateer to help us out. Of my 
 
MRS. H 
 
MEDICAL WORK AND INFLUENCE 105 
 
 fever patients, one old woman and one little girl 
 died. One man brought a basket of eggs and 
 cherries to express his gratitude. Another way- 
 laid me in the street, as I came from prayer-meet- 
 ing one dark night, to thank me. The women 
 have been profuse in their thanks. If I were a 
 physician, perhaps I should find pleasure in this 
 work, but of all things I do dislike to give 
 medicine. I do not like to handle it, and as I 
 can rarely feel very sure I am doing the best 
 thing, it worries me exceedingly. Sometimes I 
 am so thankful we can relieve these poor suf- 
 ferers, and sometimes I wish we never had the 
 means of giving a single dose, because then I 
 could turn away all such cases with a clear 
 conscience. This is my plea for the woman 
 physician who is to be sent out this autumn." 
 
 Mrs. Mateer's experience emphasizes the pre- 
 cious results to be obtained from seeing that 
 patients treated are followed up in a spiritual 
 way after their return home. The story of Mrs. 
 Li, a most intelligent and interesting old woman, 
 may be given to illustrate how faithfully she 
 herself sought to take advantage of interest 
 awakened through the medical work. 
 
 " Mrs. Li first came here one Sabbath morning 
 to see whether we could do anything for her 
 daughter whose arm and hand had been dread- 
 fully scalded. The daughter lived with the 
 mother-in-law, who was very unkind to her. She 
 
36 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 as subject' to fits of hysteria, and in one of 
 lese she had fallen into a kettle of boiling rice. 
 [r. Mateer made up a wash and gave to her, 
 though he had very little hope of being able 
 
 > effect a cure. Soon after this, the mother 
 »ok her daughter home to herself, and I went 
 
 > see her. She had used the wash most faith- 
 illy and in a few days more allowed Mr. Mateer 
 ) go once to see her. He afterwards made her 
 a ointment which I took her, showing her how 
 ) wash and dress the hand. She followed direc- 
 ons very carefully, and in two months was quite 
 ell. They were grateful to us, and as the best 
 spression they could give of their gratitude, 
 c;cording to native custom, the young woman 
 ished to be my adopted daughter — not Mr 
 [ateer's, that would have been immodest. 
 
 " Both Mrs. Holmes and I felt a deep interest 
 1 the old woman from the first, and were anx- 
 )us to arouse her to the importance of the 
 octrines we teach ; but suddenly she ceased to 
 Dme, and we feared we had lost all trace of her. 
 ^fter three months she appeared again, saying 
 lat they had moved to a distant part of the 
 ity, that they had not forgotten us, but she had 
 een ill, and her daughter was too young (about 
 lirty) to be seen on the streets alone. She 
 lade a long visit, listened very attentively to all 
 
 told her, and quite encouraged me by saying 
 le had never gone to the temples to pray for 
 
MEDICAL WORK AND INFLUENCE 107 
 
 her daughter since Mrs. Holmes told her those 
 were all false gods. Instead, she had prayed 
 every day to the true God of whom we had told 
 her. All her prayer, however, had been for her 
 daughter's recovery. She was very self-right- 
 eous, was sure she loved God and would keep 
 His law, and promised at once to observe the 
 Sabbath. I explained to her most of the com- 
 mandments, and she left us, sure of working out 
 her own salvation. She and her daughter-in- 
 law, who lives with her, are poor, earning their 
 living by sewing, and it means genuine sacrifice 
 that they both keep the Sabbath. 
 
 "Afterwards Mrs. Li began to come Sunday 
 afternoons for instruction, and she was seldom 
 absent. She would not consent to go in the 
 morning to the chapel, because some relative of 
 her deceased husband lived near, whom Chinese 
 custom says she must never allow to see her. 
 She reads the Mandarin pretty well, has several 
 books which she says she reads every day, pray- 
 ing morning and evening and trying to teach 
 her children as much as she can. I cannot go 
 to see her where she now lives because the land- 
 lord will not allow foreigners to visit her. Some- 
 times after a long conversation I hope she has 
 indeed passed from death unto life ; at other 
 times, I am afraid she has not the root of the 
 matter in her. 
 
 " It has been most interesting to see her self- 
 
;o8 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 ;onfidence giving way. Tlie process has been a 
 rery gradual one. Sometimes I feared she was 
 naking no progress, but on looking back several 
 veeks there was evident change. The matter of 
 orgiving her daughter's mother-in-law was very 
 lifficult. When I told her she must do this, she 
 ;aid, ' No, I will not.' I referred her to Christ's 
 ixample, but she answered, ' Ah, yes ! He was 
 jod, and I am not.' However, at last she was 
 ;onvinced it was her duty to forgive and pray 
 or her, and she has manifested since quite a 
 liflerent disposition towards her. 
 
 " I have not had my sympathies so thoroughly 
 inlisted for any other Chinese woman ; indeed, I 
 lave not met among the Chinese women any 
 )ther so intelligent, or so interesting a character." 
 
 This old lady, Mrs. Li, became a devoted 
 I^hristian, and was faithful to the end. Not long 
 )efore Mrs. Mateer's death, she passed away at 
 he ripe old age of eighty years. 
 
IX 
 
 ITINERATING 
 
 MRS. MATEER itinerated extensively 
 and persistently. She accompanied 
 her husband on most of his itiner- 
 ating tours and also took many trips alone, or 
 in company with other women of the station, 
 going to distances ranging from fifty to two 
 hundred and twenty miles, and spending in time 
 from two weeks to three months. She travelled 
 a great deal on donkeys on a Chinese pack- 
 saddle. She took at least one tour each year 
 until the last year, and frequently two or more. 
 She visited, in this way, the homes of all the 
 Chinese Christians connected with Tengchow 
 station, and many connected with Chefoo and 
 Weihsien, exhorting, teaching, and praying with 
 the women and children. She made a special 
 point of visiting the homes of her pupils, older 
 and younger, and no pupil even from a heathen 
 home ever failed to make a warm welcome for 
 her from his father and mother. 
 
 She dearly loved to preach the Gospel. A 
 visiting friend says : " One evening Dr. Mateer 
 and I went into the parlor after an intelligent 
 Chinese who had been with her several hours 
 
 109 
 
10 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 lad departed. Mrs. Mateer was sitting in a large 
 ;hair with her face shining with the Hght of God. 
 ts radiance startled me, as she put her hands up 
 ind pushed the hair back from her temples saying, 
 Oh, I do love to preach ! ' Her husband looked 
 .t her with a tender, comprehending smile, as she 
 idded, ' I wish I could devote my whole time to 
 )reaching. I have so many cares and have to do 
 o many other things, when I would so much 
 ather preach.' " 
 
 This passion, together with her loving sym- 
 )athy and concern for heathen women and girls, 
 )ften led her out to the country. We read : " I 
 lid not know what a blessed hope we had until 
 
 saw these Chinese women mourning for their 
 lead. They follow the bier along the street, 
 nourning and crying, ' My father, my father ! ' 
 )r ' My mother, my mother ! I shall never see 
 70\xx face again ! ' What a heartrending cry it 
 s ! And it is heard in thousands of places in 
 his great land every day, and has been for all 
 hese centuries. One would think that even 
 >atan himself might be satisfied, and cease to 
 )lind and deceive these people. Oh, that the 
 chole Church would arise with one heart and one 
 'oice and call upon God for such an outpouring 
 )f the Holy Spirit upon God's people as would 
 five the Gospel to every village in China I " 
 
 " I have just met a young woman, one among 
 aany, who for the future desired only one thing, 
 
ITINERATING in 
 
 to transmigrate at the next birth into a man. 
 The mental darkness and degradation of these 
 women impresses and oppresses me more and 
 more every year. The Uttle child knows nothing, 
 yet it can learn, and every year the prospect grows 
 more hopeful ; these women know nothing and 
 their minds are weighted down by solid darkness 
 heavier than a stone, and every year the prospect 
 of any mental improvement grows more desperate. 
 Sometimes it seems to me that the most fearful of 
 the adjectives applied to the great prison of lost 
 beings is ' dark,' — ' outer-utter darkness.' If 
 these women could gather here as the men do, 
 it would make lighter work for us and we could 
 do them more good ; but they are almost all very 
 poor, and have no way of travelling except on 
 foot, and we cannot expect women to walk fifty 
 or one hundred miles on their little, crippled 
 feet. One did walk one hundred miles in cold 
 weather, and another walked fifty, and waded a 
 river up to her arm pits, in coming here to 
 learn the ' doctrine.' But not many have either 
 the strength or resolution to do that, and fewer 
 still are so situated that they could leave their 
 families for a month or six weeks, and it is not 
 worth while to travel this distance for less time." 
 Another reason that led her into the country 
 was her special interest in the homes and com- 
 munities of the schoolboys, of which she had often 
 heard through them as desiring her to visit them. 
 
[2 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 [uch concerning these visits might be recorded, 
 or example, she says : " While sitting on my 
 ;et to keep them warm and writing on my knee, 
 [rs. Yang came in and sat in silence a little 
 hile. Then she said, ' Tell me, Mrs. Mateer, 
 hat is the reason my son would not burn incense 
 r paper when he came home at the New Year ? ' 
 There,' said I, ' your son has gone to work for 
 le foreigners and has gotten spoiled.' She 
 ent on, ' We could not make him burn any- 
 ling. He preached to everybody who came, 
 ut I did not understand anything they said, 
 [is friends sent him wine, but he would not drink 
 . He used to play cards, but he would not 
 )uch them. He would not burn anything ; but 
 e is a better son than formerly. His father was 
 ery angry. Tell me what it all means.' I told 
 er, and she understood very well and said she 
 oped her son would hold on." 
 Furthermore Mrs. Mateer went to the country 
 [ten from health considerations. The cares 
 ad confinement of home, together with those of 
 le school, at times exhausted her strength, 
 hereas the change and exhilaration of a country 
 ip were calculated to build her up. She pre- 
 ;rred this to the vacations and excursion trips 
 »r pleasure only, as affording the benefit of a 
 lange while giving the satisfaction of doing 
 ood, and at the same time occupying her so 
 lat she kept from getting so desperately home- 
 
ITINERATING 113 
 
 sick for her husband and the schoolboys. She 
 says : " For rough as the work is, in many 
 respects, it is a rest from the care and anxiety 
 inseparable from the school work ; and I live so 
 much in the open air, and eat and sleep so well, 
 that I always come back stronger, and my home 
 seems so clean and attractive." 
 
 Although this work had its compensations, 
 yet the trials and privations were neither few nor 
 small. The mule-litter could not be afforded for 
 long trips and its discomfort from jolting and 
 jarring was such that she at times even preferred 
 to ride a donkey, although no one could ever 
 consider that as luxury. 
 
 The ordeal is something like this : The donkey 
 is brought up, if possible one that has an easy 
 gait, as a strong donkey can have. He has on 
 a rope halter, no bridle. A wooden pack-saddle 
 is put on. Over it is laid a roll of bedding and 
 clothing which is securely fastened with ropes. 
 The rider mounts from a stool or from some- 
 body's steps or garden wall, and sets off for the 
 day's ride of ten or twelve hours, in addition to 
 the rest hour at noon. If the sun is hot, she 
 holds with one hand the rope halter, with the 
 other an umbrella, bracing it by her shoulder 
 against the wind. When that proves too strong 
 for her, she wets her handkerchief in the first 
 stream, puts it in her hat and rides in the sun, 
 which in the Orient is very trying. By and by 
 
114 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 it rains, and she dismounts, has wallet untied, 
 gets out her waterproof coat and overshoes, 
 remounts and goes on. Her skirts are wet and 
 muddy and it is difficult to dry them out in a 
 cheerless Chinese inn. If it is cold, she protects 
 herself with clumsy felt shoes, gaiters up over 
 her knees, and sheepskin coat that before night 
 gets very heavy on the shoulders and back. At 
 the end of the journey she is grateful if she has 
 escaped being repeatedly thrown by a tricky or 
 by a tired, stumbling donkey. Of course at the 
 end of each trip she is forced to spend much 
 time to rest. In this way Mrs. Mateer rode thou- 
 sands of miles, once going fifty miles in one day. 
 Had she not inherited a strong constitution, all 
 this would have been utterly impossible, and for 
 a woman of her ailments was certainly heroic, 
 
 Mrs. Mateer generally had an efficient and 
 loyally devoted attendant who occasionally went 
 even to the questionable extent of joining the 
 " church militant " in protecting a foreign woman 
 travelling alone in the interior. She was ac- 
 companied on some trips by a long, waggish 
 Chinese who was her devoted admirer. Once a 
 carter in passing called out to him, "Who is 
 that she-devil in that cart?" Liu replied with 
 decided emphasis, " That is an American lady, 
 and I do not allow you or any one else to revile 
 her." The man bristled up and gave Liu a cut 
 with his whip. This brought the parties to close 
 
ITINERATING iij 
 
 quarters, the result of which was that the carter 
 had to take back what he said. In the mean- 
 time Mrs. Mateer's conveyance was going on 
 without a driver. Liu soon overtook her. She 
 was much concerned on seeing some blood on 
 his clothes and asked in alarm if he was much 
 hurt. His reply was: "You need not be con- 
 cerned ; that is not my blood." 
 
 She had also an evangelist to assist her on 
 these country trips, but he did not compare with 
 the help one or more efficient Bible-women would 
 have been. During more recent years such 
 Bible-women accompany the woman missionary 
 and greatly relieve her from the constant strain 
 of the crowds and the work. She had not large 
 numbers of Christians to choose from and was 
 too busy with her boys to train women helpers. 
 On this account her work was unusually strenu- 
 ous and wearying. 
 
 The man who accompanied her in earlier 
 years draws a vivid picture of their experiences : 
 "When we got to an inn, the people, both men 
 and women, old and young, would crowd in to 
 suffocation, anxious to see and hear such an 
 unnatural specimen of womankind. It was im- 
 possible to eat a meal ; to ' talk doctrine ' was 
 out of the question, simply the jostling, talking 
 and yellings of the crowd, until by pleading and 
 driving the innkeeper managed to get the inn 
 cleared. In the morning back came the crowd, 
 
ii6 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 30 that the shentza could not pass out till some 
 Dne got up a fight that drew off the crowd some- 
 what. On arriving at a village, the throng 
 would at once gather, and at least the first hour 
 would have to be spent in answering, 'What 
 country ? ' ' How far on water ? ' ' How far by 
 land ? ' ' How many in family ? ' ' How long in 
 China?' 'HowlonginTengchow?' 'What come 
 Qut here for ? ' Then about the clothes from head 
 to feet, and so on for an hour. Before the story 
 ot Jesus and the cross could be told, another 
 crowd would come to take the place of the first. 
 Ln a half day about three such crowds could be 
 attended to. Mrs. Mateer kept this up in a vil- 
 lage for three days ; then on to another village." 
 Among the many listeners there were always a 
 lew who became somewhat interested in the Gos- 
 pel. Upon a second trip over the same territory, 
 curiosity being partly satisfied, she could man- 
 age to confine the crowds largely to women ; but 
 5he could stand only about two weeks of such 
 sxcitement and hard work, and at times was 
 completely exhausted by it. By and by the 
 strain was not so great, but the work never grew 
 2asy. 
 
 With her husband, Mrs. Mateer took a trip in 
 the hot, rainy season when the litters had to be 
 carried on the shoulders of eight or ten men. 
 This so delayed them that they reached their inn 
 ifter night in a pouring rain. It took about one 
 
ITINERATING 117 
 
 hour to get settled the first night. On account 
 of the innumerable mosquitoes and fleas, netting 
 had to be fastened to beams and nails in the wall, 
 and powder sprinkled on the bed. The next day 
 on account of the deep mud, the mules became 
 vicious and, plunging, broke one of the litter 
 poles. This threw Mrs. Mateer and everything 
 in the vehicle into a heap in the mud. During 
 the delay for repairs, she characteristically went 
 to a neighboring village and preached to the 
 women. Long after night, wading through mud 
 and water, they finally reached their destination 
 and took possession of a low, damp Chinese room, 
 which served as bedroom by night and reception 
 and dining-room by day. Here they remained 
 for three weeks, receiving visitors and going to 
 villages for several miles around. 
 
 At another time they took a trip in the winter 
 and stopped in a chapel. They arrived after 
 dark and found everything cold through and 
 through. The room was large and had been un- 
 occupied. It had two paper windows and two 
 doors very open. An effort was made to heat 
 the brick bed, but the fire refused to burn and 
 smoked so that they had to let it go out. They 
 got a lot of millet stalks to put under them to 
 keep them off the cold bed. Later they tried a 
 pan of coals, but found it a serious job to get the 
 coal to burn. Then they piled under and over 
 them all the bedding they had, but did not really 
 
ii8 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 get warm all night, while all their food and ink 
 and everything freezable froze. 
 
 Mrs. Mateer describes how on one occasion 
 she and Mrs. Crossette arranged for a night. 
 " We slept on the head of a brick bed. On the 
 other part of the bed were our landlady, a boy 
 ten years old, a girl five or six years, and a mar- 
 ried daughter with her baby. At our urgent re- 
 quest they left one leaf of the door open into the 
 next room for ventilation. We spread our quilts, 
 loosed our belts and underwaists and lay down 
 in our clothes, much to the disappointment of 
 our hostess and her daughter." 
 
 This work was not always conducted under 
 such unfavorable conditions, but at best would in 
 the West be considered great hardship and ex- 
 posure. Mrs. Mateer generally went to the vil- 
 lages surrounding the central station. This dif- 
 ficult and fatiguing work carried the Gospel to 
 those who otherwise would not have heard. 
 Often the women were so frightened that they 
 ran away. But she talked to them as she could 
 on the street and frequently was received into a 
 home, and in many villages had great encour- 
 agement. 
 
 A young missionary says : " It was with Mrs. 
 Mateer I went for my first visit to a heathen 
 home. I told her how I had longed in my dumb 
 months of learning the language to take the Gos- 
 pel to the heathen women. So the next morning 
 
ITINERATING 119 
 
 she took me with her through a httle back street 
 to a closed courtyard of a Chinese house. The 
 street was empty but a young woman soon came 
 to the gate in answer to our knocking. She was 
 much frightened when she saw our strange white 
 faces, and hurriedly barred the gate with her 
 trembHng arms. Mrs. Mateer spoke to her gen- 
 tly in her most winning manner. She coaxed 
 her in her exquisite Chinese to allow us to enter 
 that we might tell her some good news. But the 
 poor woman was beside herself with fear. ' Go, 
 go ! ' she panted. ' Go at once or I will set the 
 dog on you.' As we sadly left her I looked into 
 Mrs. Mateer's patient, gentle face, still smiling, 
 and I wondered that even a heathen could not 
 see that she had shut her door upon one who 
 could do her only good. The next day Mrs. 
 Mateer took me with her to a Chinese home 
 where she had an old acquaintance. She received 
 a joyous welcome here, and as she sat upon the 
 high brick bed, preaching the Gospel in the sim- 
 plest language, with a wealth of apt illustration, 
 to the heathen women who had crowded in to 
 see us, I was one of her most eager listeners." 
 
 In a village where the women were listening 
 attentively, a Buddhist nun expressed special in- 
 terest. She said she had heard somewhat of the 
 " doctrine," and would embrace it if Dr. Mateer 
 and Mr. Corbett, who were going on a preaching 
 tour to Tai San, the sacred mountain situated in 
 
I20 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 the western part of the province, came back, and 
 the gods sent no calamity upon them. The gods 
 of that mountain were considered mighty. It was 
 said that if a man coming down the mountain 
 should venture to look back, his neck would be 
 permanently twisted. 
 
 On visiting a central station Mrs. Mateer was 
 in the habit of teaching a class of women from 
 three to six weeks. In this work she put her 
 whole heart and soul, and concerning it she says : 
 " The labor of teaching these women who have 
 come to middle age without ever having had a 
 thought beyond the necessities of their bodies is 
 something of which you can form very little idea. 
 Their stolidity is fearful, but the Holy Spirit can 
 open their minds, and has done it in many in- 
 stances." Her usual program was to teach the 
 Catechism, reading and singing in the forenoon ; 
 in the afternoon a lesson in Matthew was ex- 
 plained, and an Old Testament story told ; in 
 the evening prayers were held, after which the 
 women scattered to their homes. In addition to 
 this she took pains to teach them the most im- 
 portant of our Christian customs, and the prin- 
 ciples of family government, and how to live 
 their faith and religion, the training of children 
 and the physical care of them. She always illus- 
 trated her points vith stories that none would 
 ever forget. 
 
 In the autumn of 1890, after attending mission 
 
ITINERATING 121 
 
 meting at Weihsien, she went on west sixty 
 miles to the district where she had a few years 
 beforfe helped in famine distribution. She had 
 forgotten many people who remembered her 
 well. Some whom she remembered were dead 
 and sotne had fled from the famine impending 
 in part of the same field. In the same premises 
 from which she distributed famine relief were 
 gathered between thirty and forty women whom 
 she taught for six weeks. 
 
 "These women gave their whole time and 
 strength to study, and we gave our whole 
 strength to them all day long. They were all 
 learning to read and gave much of their time to 
 that ; besides we had them classified, and Mrs. 
 Li and I taught the classes and also gave them 
 much oral instruction. It was a great pleasure to 
 see their minds opening up and their consciences 
 awakening on many new points. One day I 
 went clear around a large class — eighteen, I 
 think — asking each one, 'Is it a sin to defile 
 water ? * All but two answered ' Yes,' and these 
 two I had told when out there before. Then I 
 went around again asking, 'Shall we have to 
 drink in the next world all the water we have 
 defiled in this world?' Most of them thought 
 those who believed in Jesus would not have to 
 drink it, but those who did not believe probably 
 would. You see, they needed teaching on many 
 points. One day I spoke of our good deeds, 
 
t22 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 vhen they assured me they had no ' good deeds/ 
 ;hey had nothing but sin, ' nothing at all.' ' V^'hy,' 
 >aid I, 'I supposed you were all respectable 
 )\romen. Is it possible you don't love your chil- 
 iren or your parents, or honor your husbands — 
 :hat you lie and steal and revile and gad about, 
 leglecting your houses ? ' Then they turned 
 ibout and were entirely good. Since learning 
 ;his religion they had not sinned at all except 
 inconscious sins — ' everybody is committing un- 
 :onscious sin all the time, you know.' You 
 see there was need for some new ideas on this 
 subject. Pride, envy, revenge, etc., they had not 
 :hought of as sins. But considering that most 
 jf them two years ago had never heard the 
 [lame of Jesus, it was wonderful how much they 
 jnew and how teachable they were. I was 
 ;hankful every day that I could have a part in 
 :he work of teaching them and thankful that I 
 ;ould see so much and so blessed results from 
 :he famine work last year." 
 
 Years since have shown that Mrs. Mateer's 
 nfluence and instruction made a profound im- 
 jression upon many of these women who have 
 continued faithful for almost twenty years under 
 /ery discouraging circumstances. Four of these 
 ive in a village where there are no other Chris- 
 ;ians. They still meet together and part of the 
 ime go to the nearest chapel two miles away. 
 \nother woman who got her start in this class 
 
ITINERATING 123 
 
 is the Chinese instructor in the Woman's Bible 
 Institute at Weihsien, a very superior and influ- 
 ential Christian. At times she leads bands of 
 women in a preaching tour among purely 
 heathen villages. This same Bible-woman, Mrs. 
 Lii, often tells the story of her attending this class 
 much as follows : " My mother-in-law wished 
 her two sons' wives to go to this class which she 
 heard was being held not far away. She had 
 been cook at a girls' Christian boarding school, 
 and wished us to learn the truth as she had heard 
 it. My sister-in-law was a very busy woman. 
 There was much work to do in the family. (In 
 that part of the province the daughters-in-law not 
 only help with the general work of the family, 
 but each is expected to make the clothes she 
 and her husband wear, as well as the children, 
 even to the spinning and the weaving of the 
 cloth. Early and late she must toil, often get- 
 ting only three or four hours of sleep.) My 
 sister-in-lav/ would not go herself, nor did she 
 wish me to go. I was afraid. But my mother- 
 in-law insisted, and finally a neighbor said, 'If 
 you will go, I will.' What could I do but echo, 
 'If you will go, I will.' So we both started out 
 together with an older woman. When I saw 
 Mrs. Mateer I was more afraid than ever for I 
 had never seen a foreigner. She greeted me 
 warmly and took me by the hand when she 
 heard my husband was a schoolboy. But still I 
 
124 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 could not overcome my fear. Afterwards in 
 class I was so afraid her bright eyes would see 
 me and that she would ask me a question that I 
 tried to hide behind the others, and when she 
 spoke to me I thought I should sink into the 
 ground. In two or three days I lost my fear as 
 I found I could understand the stories she told. 
 As to book learning I did not learn much, though 
 I got a good start. But I got what was better, — 
 a strange, new peace of heart, so that after I went 
 home, whether grinding at the mill or working 
 in the house, I was happy all the time." This 
 woman afterwards went into foreign employ and 
 earned the means to put her husband through 
 academy and college. When first married he 
 was thirteen and she nineteen years old. 
 
 Mrs. Mateer conducted many conversations 
 with individuals. She speaks of talking with one 
 woman for two hours and says : " I talked until 
 I was exhausted. I could not see that I had 
 made much impression, but the very next Sun- 
 day this old woman, past sixty, walked six miles 
 and asked for baptism. The most that she could 
 say was that she firmly believed. She did not 
 know anything else but she would do her best to 
 learn. I was alarmed at first lest she was doing 
 it to please me, but I now believe it was of God." 
 Another day two women remained after the after- 
 noon service and talked with her for an hour and 
 a half. She read to them the story of the cruci- 
 
ITINERATING 125 
 
 fixion and a few verses here and there, as the 
 conversation suggested. They talked of the op- 
 position and contempt that Christians must 
 necessarily meet in this world. Mrs. Wing and 
 her daughter both thought they could not be 
 ashamed or afraid again. 
 
 She says concerning the holding of a public 
 service with the heathen women : " We tried to 
 hold a formal service for the women. We ex- 
 plained to them what we intended to do and 
 what they were expected to do. The babies had 
 all been left at home for that time. They prom- 
 ised to regard our wishes and keep quiet, which 
 they did. We had two little talks, sang two 
 hymns and had one prayer, lasting in all nearly 
 half an hour, and had only twice to stop for a 
 moment to remind them of their promise to keep 
 quiet. " As to order the experiment was a suc- 
 cess ; — but as we afterwards learned in conversing 
 with them, many had very little idea of anything 
 that either Mrs. Crossette or I had said. A few 
 listened attentively and seemed to get some idea 
 of what we were telling them ; — many more, how- 
 ever, only learned our names, ages, color of our 
 eyes, how we wore our hair, and similar matters. 
 Mrs. Crossette was much admired for her youth 
 and beauty. One fat, fussy old woman rushed 
 in, leading her half-blind mother by the hand. 
 At the door she screamed out, ' We've come to 
 see.' With some difficulty she elbowed her way 
 
126 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 up to us, and after a good stare at me screamed 
 out, ' Not so bad ; ' then catching sight of Mrs. 
 Crossette, her voice fell to the key of greatest 
 astonishment and she said, ' But that's the pretty 
 one I ' After a little longer stare and a few more 
 expressions of approbation, she elbowed her way 
 out 'to get supper.' " 
 
 Like other missionaries in China, Mrs. Mateer 
 met various cases of the casting out of demons 
 by Christians. While stopping at a Christian 
 village her hostess, Mrs. Liu, told the following 
 incident : " Her son, a pupil in Tengchow school, 
 had been affected with frequent attacks of what 
 we should be likely to call fits, but what she 
 termed ' possessed of the devil.' She said : 
 ' One time, while at home from school, one of 
 these attacks came on and he was lying out in 
 the yard foaming at the mouth.' Referring to 
 one of the Christians she said, ' Go and call Liu 
 Tsunghwoa to come and pray the devil out of 
 my boy.' He came, and in the midst of the 
 heathen onlookers knelt and prayed. ' The boy 
 got up, and from that day to this my boy has 
 never had another of those attacks. I said to 
 my neighbors : " Now you see what the Chris- 
 tian's God can do." ' 
 
 " One day some women were talking of per- 
 sons possessed of devils. I said : ' Jesus has 
 power over all evil spirits.' Mrs. Li at once 
 turned to the place and read about the casting 
 
ITINERATING 127 
 
 out of the legion of devils. ' There,' said she, 
 ' there were devils enough in that man to possess 
 two thousand swine 1 Just think how many there 
 were I Enough to possess two thousand swine, 
 yet Jesus commanded them in one sentence, and 
 they all left him.' I have wondered a great deal 
 why the devils were allowed to destroy so much 
 property, and have read many comments. This 
 one satisfies me. Mrs. Li knows nothing but her 
 housekeeping, her catechism, half her hymn- 
 book, and perhaps a dozen chapters of her New 
 Testament." 
 
FEEDING THE HUNGRY 
 
 T 
 
 "A HE great famines of China result from 
 a combination of circumstances. The 
 country is entirely denuded of timber, 
 which occasions floods and overflowing streams, 
 so that at times the crops are drowned or washed 
 out. At other times drought kills everything. 
 There have been no railroads, so that provisions 
 from a distance have not been available. The 
 country is hopelessly overpopulated, and the peo- 
 ple are living on the ragged edge of starvation. 
 Even a partial failure of crops means death to 
 many. One-third of the province of Shantung 
 is mountainous. If half of the population of the 
 United States were in Pennsylvania, there would 
 not be so many to the square mile as on the plains 
 of Shantung. 
 
 Confucius was influential in deciding every- 
 body to stay at home to care for their parents, 
 give them an expensive funeral and provide 
 them with money so that they could bribe their 
 way out of trouble in the next world. Thus 
 every family must have sons, and in order to 
 insure this, if necessary, marry second wives. 
 There are great stretches of sparsely occupied 
 
 128 
 
FEEDING THE HUNGRY 129 
 
 territory in parts of China so that with railroads 
 and the new Ught of common sense which Chris- 
 tianity brings, there will be a new distribution of 
 population that will relieve this distress. 
 
 Mrs. Mateer assisted in the famine of 1889 
 in Central Shantung, — two hundred and twenty 
 miles from her home. She travelled partly on 
 donkey and partly by wheelbarrow. In answer 
 to appeals large sums of money were given into 
 the hands of missionaries who distributed it from 
 various centres. Dr. and Mrs. Mateer had in 
 charge a relief station together for ten weeks, 
 when, urgent literary work calling him away, she 
 assumed the whole burden for six weeks longer. 
 They had a goodly number of reliable Chinese 
 helpers who went with them among the villages, 
 and with the aid of the village elders made per- 
 sonal inspection of storehouses and grain bins. 
 After satisfying themselves that there was not 
 enough grain to last until the wheat harvest, 
 they enrolled as many persons as seemed neces- 
 sary. The distress in many households was 
 appalling. People living in fine large houses 
 were on the verge of starvation. Some had sold 
 every chair, table, chest and other article of 
 furniture for a mere trifle — perhaps a fourth or 
 fifth of the value, — and used the money to buy 
 grain. Many had taken off the doors and 
 windows and sold them, and others had unroofed 
 their houses, selling the tiles and roof-timbers, so 
 
I30 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 that the walls of sun-dried brick crumbled into 
 heaps. 
 
 The missionaries paid out to the families en- 
 rolled, for each person, a weekly sum of three 
 cents gold. It was small, but, in addition to 
 the roots, grass seeds, and leaves they could 
 collect, would support life. They did not know 
 how much money would be available so feared 
 to go beyond this. Thus in this one centre were 
 sustained for four months the lives of fifty 
 thousand people. Mrs. Mateer's special work 
 was to look after the sick, the starving babies, 
 the families who could not live on the meagre 
 allowance, — families, for instance, where there 
 were very old persons or invalids or very small 
 children, — and to visit and report any returned 
 refugees or any other special cases. 
 
 Some very pitiable cases came under her 
 notice. " One family of father, mother and four 
 children went out with some relatives to seek 
 food, by work or begging. Their litde all was 
 packed on a large wheelbarrow and the children 
 rode on top of the baggage. The father wheeled 
 and the mother pulled. After a few weeks the 
 father died of want and exposure. The mother 
 put his dead body, wrapped in matting, on the 
 barrow and by the help of a nephew, wheeling, 
 she drew it home, spending nine days on the 
 journey." 
 
 "A company of returned refugees came one 
 
FEEDING THE HUNGRY 131 
 
 day to our gate, begging to be enrolled. They 
 had walked five or six miles and were to return 
 that night. Among them an old woman and 
 some children looked so starved that I gave each 
 some bread and tea. I had forgotten them until 
 a few weeks afterwards I was visiting their village 
 when an old white-haired woman came in and 
 fell down upon her face to thank me for that 
 coarse bread and tea." 
 
 " Oh, the skeletons of babies tugging at their 
 mothers' shrivelled, empty breasts ! I have kept 
 millet gruel always on hand for them and it was 
 wonderful how quickly they improved on it. 
 One morning as I was going out, a poor little 
 waif, stooping over his cane like an old man, 
 accosted me saying : ' I have neither father nor 
 mother and have come to be your child ! ' The 
 family had gone out as refugees in the early 
 winter ; his mother had died and then his father, 
 and his grown-up brother had deserted him. 
 After he had been with us a few days we heard 
 him telling some one that he was entirely happy 
 now ; he had three meals a day. A pitiful little 
 girl comes every morning and evening and sits 
 in our court to eat a cake and drink a bowl of 
 gruel. She is one of a large family and too 
 timid to beg, while the older ones are too selfish 
 to share with her what they may get. I first saw 
 her sitting in a quiet room, just inside our gate, 
 as if she might be sitting for a picture of Meek- 
 
132 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 ness-left-to-starve. She comes daily and there 
 she sits in the same corner with her Httle cane in 
 her hand and never speaks unless spoken to. 
 She is a tiny mite but says she is seven years 
 old. Her cheeks have filled out quite perceptibly 
 and she is a pretty child." 
 
 " One little orphan boy was starved into half- 
 idiocy. His aunt seemed to have been kind to 
 him but he was not a strong child and could not 
 live upon the poor food which kept the rest of 
 the family alive." 
 
 " There are two results of our work here, very 
 noticeable every time we go on the street. One 
 is the improved appearance of the people. 
 They have largely lost the pinched, sallow look 
 so common at first. The other is the great de- 
 crease in the number of beggars. I think there 
 is not more than one now for every twenty when 
 we first came." 
 
 In spite of the pressure of this work a great 
 deal of Mrs. Mateer's time was taken up in telling 
 the gospel story to the crowds of women who 
 daily thronged the place where she lived. She 
 was an adept in the use of the women's colloquial 
 speech, which much delighted them and opened 
 the way to their hearts. We read : " I have been 
 able to sow a great deal of good seed under very 
 favorable circumstances. The Chinese despise 
 foreigners so heartily that it is difficult to get 
 any access to the wealthy and the literary classes. 
 
FEEDING THE HUNGRY 133 
 
 Now every door is open to us. I have always 
 pitied poor women, — they are so ignorant and 
 stupefied by their hard lives. I now pity the rich 
 women more, — they do not read, they never go 
 abroad to see anybody but their nearest relatives. 
 Their houses are a little larger than the houses 
 of the poor, but they are not more tidy or more 
 cheery. They know no way to spend their money 
 but in smoking, sipping tea and gambling, nor 
 any higher happiness than to eat good food, wear 
 good clothes and gossip over their pipes, tea or 
 cards about the very small circle of their ac- 
 quaintances and the little doings of the village. 
 When I told of the enjoyment of books and the 
 happiness of doing good to others, they politely 
 assented ; but their faces said plainly, ' All that 
 may do very well for cranks and barbarians like 
 you, but we are ladies. We do not intend so to 
 demean ourselves.' One of them said to me : 
 ' What a wonderfully economical man Mr. Mateer 
 is. He does not take opium or wine or even 
 smoke plain tobacco. What good can he get 
 out of his money ? ' A few are not like minded. 
 One lady has been ready to help in every way 
 she can, and we have become fast friends. I 
 have made the acquaintance of several most in- 
 teresting and hopeful women." 
 
 During the four months Mrs. Mateer so won 
 the gratitude and affection of the people that 
 when she was leaving the leading men of the 
 
134 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 villages which had been assisted united in pre- 
 senting to her a " Wan Min Shan " — a large satin 
 canopy with flowing curtains. This was inscribed 
 with a suitable motto and the names of the two 
 hundred and twenty odd villages that had been 
 aided. Such a testimony is sometimes given to 
 popular and meritorious officials when leaving 
 their posts. They provided an official chair with 
 outriders, and a band of music, and forming a 
 procession conducted her in state through the 
 principal street of the county seat in the midst 
 of this famine district, and took formal leave of 
 her a mile beyond the city. This was simply a 
 recognition of her worth which the Chinese of 
 all classes were quick to see and appreciate. 
 Although entirely unexpected and undesired by 
 her, she could not refuse to accept this public and 
 formal expression of their heart-felt gratitude. 
 Later many were gathered into the church as the 
 result of this famine work. 
 
XI 
 
 SIDE-LIGHTS 
 
 MRS. MATEER'S activities were not 
 confined to college, medical and itin- 
 erating work. There were occasions 
 when she undertook special work. For instance, 
 when the first theological class of older men met 
 at Tengchow, she taught them music and gen- 
 eral lessons in geography, and assisted her hus- 
 band in preparing experiments in physics both 
 for this class and for that in the college. She 
 was quite an adept in this and was of great 
 service. 
 
 Mrs. Mateer's missionary vision from the first 
 embraced girls' schools that should run parallel 
 with those for the boys. Accordingly she in- 
 fluenced her sister Maggie to come out to 
 Tengchow for the purpose of conducting a girls' 
 school. This her sister did, but lived only a few 
 years. The school has been in existence ever 
 since, though its oversight has passed through 
 many vicissitudes. Throughout all these, Mrs. 
 Mateer remained its abiding counsellor and sup- 
 port. It was left entirely to her care repeatedly. 
 First and last, she gave a great deal to this school 
 in responsibility shouldered, in thought, and 
 
 135 
 
136 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 active assistance. She herself says : " I cannot 
 tell you what a burden — a perfect nightmare — 
 that girls' school has been to me all this year. 
 If we had not extra good teachers and an un- 
 usually good set of girls, I should have collapsed 
 under the burden." At one juncture she said to 
 her husband : " If there is no other way we will 
 separate, and I will go over there and live until 
 we get help for them." 
 
 Yet precious results followed this work. This 
 is illustrated in the following story : In the earlier 
 years of the girls' school at Tengchow a girl from 
 a non-Christian home attended for a short time 
 and came under Mrs. Mateer's influence. After 
 two years she was married into a heathen home 
 where her mother-in-law forbade her to attend 
 church or to go to see the Christians or mission- 
 aries, or even to read the Bible. But when her 
 son was grown she and her family separated 
 from the mother-in-law and built a home in the 
 outskirts of the town. She never forgot what 
 she had learned in the mission school, and when 
 well along in years walked twenty-seven miles 
 back to the school where she studied Christian 
 truth, applied for baptism and with her son was 
 admitted to the church. She said, " One night 
 long after being at school I dreamed that Mrs. 
 Mateer came to me. She led me into a large 
 church filled with people, and after taking me to 
 the front she said : ' Sing.' I put my hands over 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS 137 
 
 my lips and said, ' I cannot.' She quickly pulled 
 my hands away and said again, ' Sing. Can't 
 you sing " Jesus loves me " ? ' " And Mrs. Liu 
 continued ; " Thus was God calHng me to witness 
 for Him, and I mean to tell all I can about Jesus." 
 She must have kept the good seed in her heart 
 for more than twenty years, when it sprang up 
 and bore fruit. 
 
 During the long period of indifference, and 
 even active opposition to female education in 
 Shantung on the part of the Church and many 
 missionaries, Mrs. Mateer stood as its champion 
 and active promoter. It seems now almost in- 
 credible that in the Shantung province in 1893, 
 after thirty years of effort, with one hundred and 
 sixty-five missionaries, and about eight thousand 
 church-members, only one woman was giving 
 herself to the education of girls. 
 
 A paper was presented that year at the Shan- 
 tung Missionary Conference, urging the appall- 
 ing mistake in all this. In stirring up interest 
 in this movement, Mrs. Mateer was both inspirer 
 and guide. Later on wiser counsels prevailed 
 and extensive education of women in Shantung 
 is now highly appreciated and generally pro- 
 moted by missionaries. Christians, and even some 
 heathen. 
 
 When other things were dropped for lack of 
 strength, throughout all the years she continued 
 to teach her Sunday-school class, for which she 
 
138 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 always made careful preparation. Even when 
 in Shanghai assisting her husband in literary 
 work, she gathered up a Sunday-school class. 
 " The only missionary work I can do here is in 
 the Union Church Sunday-School where I have 
 taken a class made up of Chinese nurses who 
 escort the little English children to Sunday- 
 school. We have to get on in ' Pidgin English ' 
 mixed with a few Mandarin words, because my 
 Chinese is unintelligible to them. We talk after 
 some such fashion : ' Have you got ling hiven 
 (soul) ? ' ' Yes, have got.' ' S'pose you die, could 
 go where ? ' One answers, ' Good man go top- 
 side, bad man go down-side.' ' How you know?' 
 ' My b'long church.' I afterwards learned from 
 her that she belonged to the Presbyterian Church 
 in Amoy. The other women did not know 
 'where go.' One said, 'Dead, all makee spoil 
 in ground.' I asked, 'Dead can know any- 
 thing ? ' ' No, dead no savey (know) anything.' 
 One said, 'S'pose all good people go top-side, 
 stop all time, too many, no can stay.' She was 
 arguing for transmigration of souls. You see I 
 have a hard task, but God can use even these 
 poor means to awaken these women." 
 
 The Chinese were mightily influenced by her 
 faithfulness in attendance upon all the public 
 services, both on Sunday and during the week'. 
 An old pupil recalls the following : " One dark, 
 rainy night she started to wade through the 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS 139 
 
 mud to the weekly prayer-meeting. She slipped 
 and fell in the mud. ' This time,' we students 
 said, ' she will certainly not get to the meeting.' 
 To our great surprise, after going back home to 
 change her clothes, she came to the meeting." 
 The prayer-meeting, which she began for the 
 women during her second year in China, she 
 continued all her life in Tengchow. Thirty years 
 afterwards she writes of the pleasure it gave her 
 and of the good it had done many women. " At 
 first they supposed that Christianity, like all other 
 religions they know anything about, was a sys- 
 tem of doctrines and ceremony. One must be 
 instant in season and out of season in leading 
 them out into a real understanding of the Chris- 
 tian life." 
 
 Mrs. Mateer always did the pastoral work 
 among the women of the Tengchow church, 
 visiting much from house to house both among 
 the heathen and Christian families. She knew 
 better than any one else there everything about 
 everybody and every family connected with the 
 church. Many incidents are told of her prac- 
 tical and sympathetic kindness. It was a living 
 Gospel that made a deep impression upon the 
 Chinese. Dr. and Mrs. Mateer lived always in 
 a very plain and frugal way that they might 
 have the means to help others, and find through 
 helpfulness entrance to their hearts. 
 
 " The family into which a feeble-minded young 
 
140 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 woman married would not have her, so the 
 mother had to provide for her. On account of 
 the mother's poverty, Mrs. Mateer cared for this 
 unfortunate woman until her death." 
 
 " An old woman in the city was made afraid 
 of heavy rains by a flood following one such, so 
 ever after that when a rain came, Mrs. Mateer 
 sent a man to bring the old woman to her home, 
 even having him carry her on his back when the 
 streets were bad." 
 
 " There lived in an old temple now demolished 
 a family, the mother in which had died, leaving 
 twin children about five years old. The father 
 was taken ill and could not care for the children. 
 So Mrs. Mateer fed and cared for them all win- 
 ter. But in the spring they all disappeared and 
 never returned to give thanks." These incidents 
 might be multiplied indefinitely. 
 
 Sometimes the knowledge of this kindness in- 
 spired confidence and won a heart as nothing 
 else could have done. 
 
 "A man became a Christian at Tengchow, 
 whose family lived one hundred li (thirty-four 
 miles) in the country. He went home and told 
 his family not to worship ancestors and burn 
 incense at the New Year. His wife had brought 
 out the tablets, offerings, etc. That night she 
 put all away for fear her husband would come 
 home and find them ; but she forgot one Htde 
 box of incense on the table. He came home. 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS 141 
 
 and discovering it reproved her. She began to 
 argue and the neighbors came to help, where- 
 upon the husband took all the tablets and burned 
 them to ashes. His neighbors and all his wife's 
 relatives became his enemies. As soon as Mrs. 
 Mateer heard all this she sent to entreat the wife 
 to come to study. When this failed she went the 
 one hundred li in person to see the woman and 
 her relatives and neighbors. She stayed several 
 days. The woman's brother saw Mrs. Mateer's 
 perseverance, self-denial and kindness, and said, 
 ' Have foreigners then such love ? ' So he was 
 glad to bring the woman to the city. When she 
 came to Tengchow, she heard so much of Mrs. 
 Mateer's kindness and care and helpfulness that 
 she lost her fear and studied and became a 
 Christian. Later her brother and his family also 
 were baptized. Now all the descendants of this 
 family are professing Christians, one of them 
 being a pastor's wife." 
 
 Mrs. Mateer was constantly in demand as 
 counsellor. " One of my sister's old pupils was 
 here the other day to talk over her prospects and 
 troubles. She thought Mr. Mateer and I had 
 better stop trying to do much more work and 
 save ourselves up to be consulted. We have 
 had some fun over her suggestion but the con- 
 sultations are not much fun." 
 
 " Mrs. Li, eighty-four years old, is trying to 
 get a Christian widow in Chefoo for her widowed 
 
142 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 5on of fifty-two. At every turn in affairs she comes 
 to me and says : ' But I must fiave you to speak 
 1 word. Affairs won't move a peg otherwise. 
 The Lord sent you to me instead of a mother.' " 
 
 " Last evening a letter came from the father of 
 3ne of the boys saying : ' To De Sz Niang greet- 
 ing. Please get my son a wife. No more at 
 present. Yours, etc' Afterwards a letter came 
 :rom the sister of one of my favorite big boys, a 
 lice letter with lots of nice things in it, but the 
 Durden of it was, — ' It would be a great favor if 
 >rou could find a wife for my brother.' " 
 
 Dr. Hayes, in his address at her funeral, re- 
 narked : " When the Chinese pastors, helpers or 
 :eachers came to Tengchow to report their work, 
 :hey did not go fjrst to Dr. Mills or to Dr. 
 Mateer or to me, but you would find them sitting 
 n Mrs. Mateer's room giving her a detailed ac- 
 :ount of every discouragement and every suc- 
 ;ess." 
 
 Missionaries are considered public servants 
 md their work for the people must take prece- 
 ience over everything else ; yet they have their 
 )wn homes and families and cares to consider 
 md the adjustment between these is not easy, 
 llrs. Mateer writes : " It often happens that while 
 [ am telling some Chinese woman how she 
 jught to keep herself, her house and her children 
 ilways clean, and take pains to make her home 
 feasant, her table inviting, etc., etc., for herhus- 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS 143 
 
 band, — my own house goes unswept, my dinner 
 gets spoiled, or the most important dish left out, 
 and my husband's clothes lack buttons. I rarely 
 sit down an hour with my needle when I am 
 able to read Chinese, to write, or to talk, that 
 Calvin does not remonstrate. He says, ' Give 
 your strength to the Chinese, and your leisure to 
 resting.' I suspect you would not praise my 
 housekeeping much, though I do not believe 
 you would find our home at all unendurable. I 
 often congratulate myself that there is no ' so- 
 ciety' here to fear, no envious or evil-minded 
 eyes to pry either into my wardrobe or my 
 kitchen." 
 
 Occasionally she found in distinctively wom- 
 anly tasks recreation and change. Early in her 
 life in China she writes : 
 
 " Calvin needs the teacher, so I have laid aside 
 my Chinese books for a week and am putting 
 our winter clothes in order. I washed my old 
 brown merino which I wore every day last win- 
 ter, turned it upside down and made it over for 
 Sunday ; washed my cloth sacque and changed 
 the style of the sleeves, and made me a pressed 
 flannel sacque to wear over my brown silk dress 
 which has given out under the arms. Now I am 
 to make Calvin trousers, a vest, possibly a coat, 
 but I hope not. And then for my music book !" 
 
 In addition to all that she did for the Chinese, 
 much time was given to her foreign friends. 
 
144 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 During the years, she entertained in her home by 
 the sea many missionaries who came there before 
 regular summer resorts were opened. This is 
 the testimony of one of these : "I look back 
 with the greatest pleasure to those early days of 
 mine in China, when I met Mrs. Mateer and her 
 sister. The inspiration their zeal and devotion 
 gave to others, like myself, who had the privilege 
 of meeting them, has been an unspent force all 
 through my life, and has passed on to other 
 minds, Chinese as well as foreigners. It is such 
 people as Mrs. Mateer who are the children of 
 God, moving to and fro among the children of 
 men. They are in the world but not of it. They 
 bring blessings from heaven to human sufferers on 
 earth. They are the messengers, — veritably the 
 angels of God, — dispensing His grace and love 
 to those who labor and are heavy laden." 
 
 Another writes : " After my husband's death, I 
 was transferred to Tengchow and was taken, 
 with my four children, into Mr. Mateer's family. 
 My baby boy — five months old — was a great 
 curiosity to the Chinese, as for a long time there 
 had been no baby in the mission. The report 
 spread far and wide that there was a foreign 
 baby in the house and for many days crowds of 
 visitors came to see him. How I admired Mrs. 
 Mateer then. She always made them welcome, 
 never thinking of being inconvenienced and 
 never letting them go without telling them, in 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS i45 
 
 her cheery way, about the love of Jesus. She 
 never spared herself. She was lovely to my 
 children and they speak of her always with 
 tender affection. We were in her home four 
 months until the Tientsin massacre drove all 
 missionaries out of Tengchow." 
 
 Many new recruits for Tengchow and for the 
 newer stations of the interior stayed with the 
 Mateers, so that most of the time some one was 
 living with them. Housekeeping was not one of 
 her favorite employments but she did this enter- 
 taining as part of her missionary duty. There 
 was involved in this the spending of much time 
 and thought in interpreting of the language, in 
 advising concerning new furniture, marketing, 
 help and the innumerable things about which 
 young missionaries wanted and needed advice. 
 One of these says : " We lived with Dr. and 
 Mrs. Mateer the first winter, and through it all 
 they were uniformly kind and courteous to us 
 and most interested in all that concerned us." 
 Another : " To the young members of the station 
 she was a tender mother, or a loving sister, ever 
 ready to advise, happiest when she thought she 
 was helpful to us and keenly appreciative 'of all 
 we accomplished." 
 
 Motherless missionary children were at differ- 
 ent times committed to her care. It was one of 
 the sorrows of her life that she had no children. 
 She loved them very much and was never so 
 
146 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 happy as when among them. Two children 
 were left to her care while the father went on an 
 itinerating tour. She taught them, attended to 
 their clothes and nursed one through scarlet 
 fever. Writing in October of one year she says : 
 " I have had just one week's rest from sick folks 
 since July. The last boy had been able to go 
 
 into school one day, and Eddie M had 
 
 nearly recovered from a severe cold and dumb 
 
 ague when Rose M came down with scarlet 
 
 fever. She had it lightly and the very fact that 
 she felt so well made it all the more difficult to 
 keep her from exposing herself. I was very 
 
 glad Dr. K got home in time to take the 
 
 responsibility off my hands. I have had to 
 arrange for the winter clothing for both of these 
 children and have sewed every spare moment for 
 one week to get things ready for a cold snap ; 
 then Rose took the fever and for a week more I 
 had to give all my spare time to knitting and 
 reading to her. I have footed three pairs of 
 stockings and am knitting a new pair so now 
 they will soon each have a change. I have con- 
 cluded that I cannot again assume such respon- 
 sibilities when Calvin is away and I have the 
 school on my hands." 
 
 Another motherless little one was left with her 
 for years, during which time she took the place 
 of a mother, in every way caring for her. A 
 friend says : " While Mrs. Mateer and her 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS ' 147 
 
 husband tarried in our home for months at a 
 time, strenuously engaged in literary work, it 
 was beautiful to watch their love for the children 
 of the family. I can never forget how Mrs. 
 Mateer kept our little daughter out in the bright 
 sunshine with her every morning for about half 
 an hour. A large carriage-rug was thrown over 
 the steps and the little girl took her story- 
 book and read to Mrs. Mateer while she did a 
 bit of mending. She felt she needed every 
 morning a little time for an ' outing ' as she 
 called it, and her kind heart devised this way of 
 taking it. They called it their ' morning ride ' 
 together, and her enjoyment of it was quite as 
 real as the child's. Occasionally she would have 
 a children's party, and the picture of her as she 
 went to meet her little guests is one of the 
 sweetest in the ' memory-room ' she .still occupies. 
 She was such an indefatigable worker, and it was 
 therefore all the more beautiful to see in her this 
 'heart of a Htde child.'" 
 
 Mrs. Mateer wrote numerous articles for the 
 periodical press in China and in the United 
 States, and many letters to her friends and to 
 others in the interest of the work. Below is 
 given, in part, one of the productions, written 
 more especially to the missionaries, but full of her 
 kind comprehension of conditions surrounding 
 the Chinese Christians. 
 
148 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 " Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness " 
 "When we counted the cost of being mis- 
 sionaries, doubtless we recognized the possibility 
 of hardships, dangers, disappointments, sickness, 
 even bereavements and death ; but I wonder how 
 many of us took dirt into the account. Yet it is 
 the first trial we meet on our arrival, and is every- 
 where present, in city and village, on the streets, 
 in the courts and houses, and on the clothes and 
 persons of their inmates. The theme of this 
 paper is a household maxim in Christian lands, 
 and has such a Scriptural ring that it seems like 
 a text from the Bible. In the midst of a Chris- 
 tian civilization, cleanliness is often a stepping- 
 stone to godliness, and one of the evidences of 
 a renewed heart. Instinctively we begin our 
 efforts for the conversion of these ' dirty Chinese ' 
 by trying to teach them cleanliness. We exhaust 
 our supplies of handkerchiefs, soap and towels 
 in the good work, and sigh for unlimited stores 
 of these essentials for free distribution. 
 
 " But most questions have at least two sides and 
 one's judgment on every subject is much modi- 
 fied by one's standpoint, habit, and prejudices. 
 We say ' Behold these filthy Chinese, who seldom 
 bathe or wash their clothes.' The Chinese say, 
 ' Behold these filthy foreigners, — what an amount 
 of washing and scrubbing it takes to keep them 
 clean. They smell of butter and cannot even 
 endure the odor of their own bodies without 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS 149 
 
 a daily bath.' As to food we say : ' This 
 Chinese stuff — ugh ! I cannot bring myself to 
 taste of it.' The Chinese say : ' Grown-up men 
 and women drinking milk like babies, having 
 knives on the table like butchers — how disgust- 
 ing ! ' Certainly there is no accounting for 
 tastes, excepting, of course, one's own. 
 
 " More and more we see that the Chinese are 
 not so dirty as we at first imagine them to be. 
 Their women are as strict in carrying out their 
 ideas of cleanliness as we are ours. I know but 
 few, even of the very poor, who do not keep the 
 cooking range and utensils, the bread-board, and 
 chopping-block as clean as any one could ; and 
 they winnow and wash the millet, and pick over 
 and wash their vegetables with great care and 
 nicety. They are very careful about sweeping, 
 too, though the choice of a place for the accumu- 
 lated sweepings be limited to the corner behind 
 the door, and to the street, which no garbage 
 cart and no scavenger, except hungry dogs and 
 chickens, ever visit. 
 
 "Another thing we shall learn as we extend 
 our acquaintance with families is that most of the 
 filth of the Chinese is due to their poverty. 
 Where there is an income of not over ten dollars 
 a year per member to cover the whole expense 
 of living, perhaps including rent (and hun- 
 dreds of thousands of families have less), is it 
 any wonder that they have few changes of rai- 
 
ISO CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 ment or that they grudge the fading and wear of 
 each washing of their garments, or that in the 
 hot weather they save the children's clothes and 
 the men's shirts, or that they have not plenty of 
 hot water and soap to keep them clean ? I have 
 often wondered at the patient industry of these 
 women, as they sit by the streams for hours to- 
 gether, under the beams of the burning sun, or 
 with hands purple and numb with the coldness 
 of the water, rubbing and pounding at garments 
 so dirty and ragged we would take them up with 
 the tongs and put them in the fire. So would 
 they, but that stern necessity of poverty compels 
 them to wash and mend them. I wonder, too, 
 that they manage to get their clothes so clean 
 with no soap, and no better appliances for wash- 
 ing than a rough cut stone and an Indian club 
 and a little crude soda or soft soapstone. Is it 
 strange, with such means of washing, white 
 things soon cease to be white, however clean 
 they may be ? The superstition, probably uni- 
 versal in China, that we shall be compelled in 
 the unseen world to drink all the water we have 
 defiled in this world, no doubt has its influence 
 in determining the amount of washing and bath- 
 ing done. 
 
 " The want of space and the fear of thieves re- 
 quires everything to be crowded in and around 
 the house. The problem of cleanliness in a 
 house with a clay floor and no ceiling, lighted 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS 151 
 
 only by paper windows, its walls ornamented 
 with bunches of seed, grain in the ear, hoes, 
 sickles, etc., and fringed with rows of bins and 
 baskets and jars full of grain, and opening into a 
 barn-yard occupied by donkey, pigs and poultry, 
 is no easy one. Every one knows how hard it 
 is to keep little children clean, even in roomy 
 houses, with painted or carpeted floors. How 
 much more difficult where children have no place 
 to play but on the bed, clay floor or in the street ? 
 " After all, is cleanliness essential to godliness ? 
 The Mosaic law included many washings and 
 cleansings, but Moses, the lawgiver, who talked 
 with God face to face, despite his early training 
 in the palace of Pharaoh, could not always have 
 kept clean during his eighty years of nomad life. 
 David was the man after God's own heart, the 
 sweet singer of Israel, but as a shepherd and as 
 a refugee, he could not have been cleaner than a 
 Chinese peasant. Elijah, the brave ' man of 
 God,' was a rough man in coarse attire. If we 
 had been making him ready for his translation, 
 after his dusty walk to the Jordan, we would 
 surely have given him a good bath. But God 
 took him over, dry shod. ' Cleanliness is next 
 to godliness ' is not a Scriptural text. Humility 
 and sincerity ; faith, virtue, knowledge, temper- 
 ance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and 
 charity ; goodness, righteousness and truth ; 
 love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
 
152 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 ness, faith, meekness, temperance ; these are 
 Scriptural lists of Christian virtues. ' Pure re- 
 ligion ... is this, to visit the widow and 
 fatherless and to keep himself unspotted from the 
 world.' ' Godliness with contentment is gain.' 
 Not a word yet about cleanliness. 
 
 " Is cleanliness then not a virtue ? Shall we 
 adopt the standard of the Chinese with whom we 
 come most in contact, and adapt ourselves to it 
 as best we can ? By no means. Let us keep 
 ourselves, our families, our houses, as clean as we 
 can without unduly taxing strength, time and 
 temper ; and let us inculcate cleanliness in our 
 schools, in so far as is consistent with the highest 
 interests of our pupils in their circumstances. The 
 life of an ordinary Chinese woman is a hard, 
 rough one. They are starved intellectually, ill- 
 fed physically — far more so than the men, and 
 are hard worked. Besides the cooking, washing, 
 sewing, grinding of the grain and care of the 
 children, as a rule (throughout the northern 
 provinces at least), they are expected to provide 
 the clothing for the family, manufacturing the 
 cloth frorji the cotton pods, and performing every 
 step of the process by hand. There is little of 
 social enjoyment, or of conjugal, or even filial 
 love. No star of hope shining from the unseen 
 world to brighten their lives ; and they never go 
 from home, except to visit their relatives or near 
 neighbors, whose lives differ in no wise from 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS 153 
 
 their own. What wonder they are without en- 
 terprise or ambition ? Some at least of our edu- 
 cated girls must go back, in some degree, to such 
 lives and surroundings. Is it wise or kind or 
 right for us to unfit them entirely for such future 
 circumstances ? A few years ago the daughter 
 of a poor, but thrifty, farmer was educated in one 
 of the plainest of the girls' schools. She had 
 been betrothed in her childhood to the son of a 
 neighboring farmer, who with his family happily 
 had become Christians. When she went home 
 for her last vacation, she spent a whole mohth 
 crying in prospect of the society and surround- 
 ings in which her life must be spent. But grace 
 triumphed and she accepted her lot, and devoted 
 herself to the work of giving to her neighbors 
 the spiritual and intellectual blessings she had 
 received. Why did she not improve her sur- 
 roundings ? Because, like Archimedes, she had 
 no fulcrum ; nor had she a lever long enough. 
 
 "There is a great deal of hard, rough work to 
 be done before China is converted to Christ. 
 There must be educated men ready to trudge on 
 foot (often with their luggage on their shoulders) 
 over the hills and plains, preaching the Gospel, 
 and there must be educated Christian women 
 willing to travel on wheelbarrows or donkeys and 
 willing to live in boxes and bundles for months 
 together, for the sake of carrying the good news of 
 salvation, and teaching it, to those who are will- 
 
154 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 ing to learn. And there must be men and women 
 of such intelligence, strength of character and 
 fertility of resource as only a liberal Christian 
 education can develop, who are yet willing to be 
 poor all their lives, and to live as other Chinese 
 do, and right among them, in order to be their 
 pastors and teachers. 
 
 " Though cleanliness is not next to godliness, 
 nor its first fruit, yet it is a sure fruit. Godliness 
 always produces sound morality and awakens in- 
 telligence, enterprise and independence of char- 
 acter ; these in their turn produce wealth. God- 
 liness and intelligence, with wealth as a helper, 
 always produce cleanliness and all true refine- 
 ment. Let us seek first the conversion of the 
 Chinese, and their moral and spiritual elevation, 
 and try to wait patiently for all the other pleas- 
 ant fruits, which are sure to come in their season. 
 
 " It will strengthen both our patience and our 
 courage if we consider the changes even one 
 hundred years have made in the personal and 
 domestic habits and sanitary conditions of the 
 common people of Europe and America. In the 
 redeemed world, doubtless, God has as much use 
 for the Chinese as for the Anglo-Saxons ; and 
 He has given to them, as to us, the traits which 
 best suit His purposes. It is very pleasant to us 
 that some of the Chinese Christians become so 
 much like foreigners ; yet as we have no proof 
 that foreign Christians are any more pleasing to 
 
SIDE-LIGHTS i5S 
 
 God than Chinese Christians, let us try to be 
 content, for the present, with the regeneration 
 and renovation of the inner man, and wait till 
 Christianity has had time to show us the per- 
 fected Chinese Christian." 
 
XII 
 
 STIMULATING THE HOME CHURCH 
 
 URING her thirty-four years in China 
 Mrs. Mateer visited the home-land but 
 twice, the first time after fifteen years. 
 The Board had urged her and her husband to 
 come home earlier, and finally proposed that for 
 health reasons she come a year in advance and 
 remain two years. Their great problem was get- 
 ting some one to take charge of the school in 
 which their lives had become so wrapped up that 
 they were not willing to leave it without com- 
 petent oversight. 
 
 To the Board's proposition that Mrs. Mateer 
 should go in advance, she demurred, saying: 
 " First, the Chinese have long thought it Mr. 
 Mateer's duty to visit his mother. Indeed, their 
 ideas of filial and conjugal duty require that if 
 we cannot both go together, I should wait until 
 my husband has gone and returned ; so my going 
 first might demoralize the Church. Second, I am 
 so healthy-looking an invalid, I fear that my 
 going home for so long a time would be a stum- 
 bling-block to the churches. Third, I cannot be 
 spared two whole years unless absolutely neces- 
 
 156 
 
MRS. MATEER ON HER FIRST VISIT TO THE 
 
 HOMELAND. AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS 
 
 ON THE FIELD 
 
STIMULATING THE HOME CHURCH 157 
 
 sary, and it cannot be proven till tried that so 
 much time is necessary. Fourth, we propose to 
 take a vacation of a year and a half, that is, three 
 years for both. Mr. Mateer needs that much 
 time as surely as I do. The law allows the wife 
 but one-third. The Board proposes that I have 
 two-thirds of the vacation, which is clearly illegal. 
 Fifth, Mr. Mateer's work is already as much as 
 he can do in justice to himself. I think it would 
 be ungenerous, after all these years of labor, to 
 lay upon him such additional burdens as my ab- 
 sence would involve. Certainly, we must have 
 clearer light before I will consent either to leave 
 the school without a competent superintendent, 
 or to leave my husband to bear the burden of it 
 alone." We may fairly infer from some of her let- 
 ters that for personal reasons, also, she was loath 
 to leave her husband for so long a time, and this, 
 no doubt, unconsciously weighed with her. 
 When in Chef 00 in search of health she says : "I 
 have regular fits of homesickness every Wednes- 
 day when the messenger comes from Tengchow, 
 and in spite of all my advantage, am only get- 
 ting weaker and thinner every week. Well, the 
 truth is, I would rather see Calvin than Peking, 
 Shanghai, Japan, and forty other places. I can- 
 not even have the satisfaction of a good cry, for 
 Calvin would hear of it, and how worried he 
 would be to hear of tears that he could not wipe 
 away ! " 
 
IS8 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 At length Dr. and Mrs. Wherry, who had just 
 returned from furlough, came to take charge of 
 the school, which rendered it possible for them 
 to take their vacation. Mrs. Matee'r had finally 
 been prevailed upon to go some months in ad- 
 vance of her husband, leaving him to put through 
 the press in Shanghai some important literary 
 work. While their outward passage across the 
 Atlantic and Indian Oceans and China Sea re- 
 quired about six months, their return across the 
 Pacific Ocean occupied but one month. When 
 crossing the continent a fellow passenger became 
 acquainted with Mrs. Mateer and found after a 
 day or two that she had been in China. Being 
 a man of the world, a disbeliever in missions, 
 and withal hating the Chinese, he freely ex- 
 pressed his opinion that no Chinaman could 
 become a real Christian. She did not argue on 
 general principles, but told the following story : 
 " One of our converts of some years' standing, a 
 middle-aged farmer, called to see me and tell of 
 his welfare. After some conversation and ex- 
 hortation, I asked him what evidence he had 
 that he was a Christian. He spoke of his faith in 
 Christ, etc., but I asked him if he had any real, 
 concrete proof. After a moment's reflection, he 
 said : ' I believe I have a little proof. When I 
 used to clear the stones off my fields, because it 
 was most convenient, I just tossed them over 
 into my neighbor's fields, but I don't do that 
 
STIMULATING THE HOME CHURCH 159 
 
 now. I carry and throw them into a gully or 
 some other place, where they will not harm any- 
 body.' " Her listener looked thoughtful for a 
 moment and then said, " There are a good many 
 Christians in America who I fear would find it 
 difficult to give as good an account of the effect 
 of their religion." He said no more against the 
 Chinese or against religion. 
 
 After leaving Omaha, a brisk, young com- 
 mercial traveller got into conversation with her. 
 He found her so well informed on general topics 
 that he finally asked her for what house she was 
 travelling. She told him that she was travelling 
 for the Lord and had been out on a fifteen years' 
 tour in China. 
 
 She went directly to her old home at Dela- 
 ware, Ohio. Her dear old uncle, John Cun- 
 ningham, and his wife, with whom she as a girl 
 had made her home, were still there to welcome 
 her, and her sister, her cousins and many friends 
 of her girlhood were overjoyed to see her once 
 more. After visiting her own relatives and those 
 of her husband, although still far from well, she 
 spent much time going from place to place, 
 making missionary addresses to societies and 
 bands, arranging three or four addresses a week. 
 In her speaking she was clear in all her state- 
 ments, no embellishments, no coloring for effect. 
 Yet she looked on the bright side and was in- 
 tensely in earnest, striving to set forth the needs 
 
i6o CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 of the Chinese, especially their spiritual need, 
 and impressing all who heard her with the 
 longing in her own soul for their salvation. Her 
 captivating smile, her sparkling eyes and ani- 
 mated face could not be forgotten, nor the inter- 
 est with which her quiet humor, her Scriptural 
 allusions, her vigor and charm, invested the tell- 
 ing of her story ; but that which remained longest 
 with those who heard her was her simplicity, her 
 single-mindedness and the Christlikeness of her 
 spirit. Her speaking was so effective that she 
 had more invitations than she could possibly 
 accept. Her influence was felt markedly in the 
 homes where she was entertained ; but it is to 
 be feared that the visiting and much conversa- 
 tion, probably late into the night, were a great 
 strain on her weak head and back. She was 
 the means of influencing various young people 
 to consecrate their life to mission work. 
 
 After an exhausting winter, which Mrs. Mateer 
 had hoped might be one of rest and recupera- 
 tion, she found a refuge at Clifton Springs, that 
 quiet home for worn missionaries. She speaks 
 of the many social demands of loving friends 
 and adds : " In three months of this supposed 
 resting time, I have written over one hundred 
 letters and more than as many postals." She 
 continues : " This week I have been reading 
 over old letters. They showed that we worried 
 much uselessly, and worked unwisely, and that 
 
STIMULATING THE HOME CHURCH i6i 
 
 we often ' tithed mint, anise, and cummin ' in 
 our zeal, and ' neglected weightier things ' in 
 our ignorance ; but they show a great deal of 
 fresh enthusiasm which I wish we could have 
 kept." 
 
 It is a matter of great regret that no record 
 was kept of speeches made while at home, but 
 her thought upon the relation of the missionary 
 to the home church is set forth in the extract 
 given below : 
 
 " I have received a letter containing these sen- 
 tences : ' I wish our hearts could be stirred up to 
 some due sense of the demands of the heathen 
 upon us, as you who are surrounded by them 
 see and feel it. Please write to us something to 
 rouse our waning zeal.' We frequently receive 
 similar requests from many different places, and 
 occasionally strong appeals from our secretaries, 
 to help them supply the demand for something 
 to stimulate the interest of the Church. The 
 touching and stirring account of the conversion 
 of an African boy, as given in the Foreign Mis- 
 sionary a few years ago, by one connected with 
 the Zulu Mission, was pointed out to us as an 
 example of what good could be done by well 
 written accounts of incidents we meet with in 
 our work. 
 
 " Now, there is not one of us who would not 
 be thankful and delighted, and inexpressibly 
 gratified, and perhaps He who knows our hearts 
 
i62 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 best sees that in order to be truthful we must 
 add, mightily elated, to send a touching story by 
 every mail. But whatever may be the reason, 
 there are very few such stories to write. We 
 missionaries are the happiest people in the world, 
 but not chiefly, nor frequently, because of the 
 zeal enkindled by great and startling successes. 
 Missionary work is much like teaching and 
 preaching at home. Some souls are growing in 
 grace, some are coming into the church, and 
 some have gone home to glory. Good is being 
 done all the time, yet at times we sigh more than 
 we rejoice. When the ten lepers were cleansed, 
 one turned back to give thanks, but Christ 
 grieved for the nine. We almost forget the tens 
 that are saved among the tens of thousands who 
 are g'oing down to death. Moreover, we find 
 those who, like the Galatians, ' run well ' for a 
 time, and then our rejoicing on their account is 
 turned into mourning. We soon learn to 're- 
 joice with trembling,' and fear to tell our joy, 
 lest it turn into disappointment. Sometimes we 
 do like David, ' number the people ' ; and like 
 David, we have to mourn our folly. 
 
 " This work taxes not only our minds and our 
 bodies, but our hearts, and that all the time. It 
 is hard for the stream to rise above the fountain. 
 It is hard for the extremities to be warmer than 
 the heart. It is hard for the picket guards to be 
 more enthusiastic than the army. You at home 
 
STIMULATING THE HOME CHURCH 163 
 
 are the fountain ; we are the stream. You are 
 the heart ; we are the extremities. You are the 
 army ; we are the pickets. We are almost cut 
 off from the Christian and civilized world. Our 
 friends become absorbed in their interests, and 
 cares, and new friendships, and one by one forget 
 us, till the mail almost ceases to bring us any but 
 mother's letters and business letters. By and by, 
 mother closes her dim eyes, and folds her trem- 
 bling hands in her long sleep, while we are far 
 away ; and so almost the last link is broken that 
 binds us to a Christian land. 
 
 " Appeals come to us for information. The 
 Church has a right to know what we are doing 
 and what are the results. We are watchmen as 
 well as workmen. We answer as fully as time 
 will allow, but there comes no response. A Sun- 
 day-school or society offers to aid in the support 
 of a particular station, or a congregation offers 
 to support a missionary, and all wish frequent 
 and regular letters to keep up the interest. We 
 write our regular letter, they send their regular 
 contribution but there comes with it no word of 
 sympathy or cheer. All is silent as the grave. 
 Does our zeal never wane ? Does our interest 
 never flag ? Do our hearts never faint ? Are we 
 in no danger of growing weary in well doing ? 
 Who writes letters to rouse our waning zeal ? 
 Who cheers our drooping spirits ? In Christian 
 lands, full of Bibles and churches and Sunday- 
 
i64 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 schools, with thousands of praying men and 
 women, we sing : 
 
 '"Is this vile world a friend to grace 
 To help us on to God ? ' 
 
 " What, then, must the heathen world be ? 
 You must not think it is only the Chinese Chris- 
 tians who are affected by the surrounding 
 heathenism. It tries the grace of the best and 
 strongest of us. How can a few rushlights 
 light up this dense darkness ? Much less can 
 they shine out to light and stimulate those who 
 live in the brightness of the gospel day. Is not 
 the wonder rather that they are not quenched in 
 the darkness ? 
 
 " My sisters, the conversion of the world is not 
 a job to be finished in a year or two, by a spurt 
 now and then, when some extra excitement stirs 
 up our enthusiasm. It is a stupendous work 
 that will require the concentrated and consecrated 
 energies of all who love the Lord Jesus, of every 
 name and nation, and for many long years to 
 come. The only way to accomplish it is for the 
 whole Church to go at the work in obedience to 
 our Lord's command, with a just estimate of its 
 immensity and with a strong determination on 
 the part of each member to work on until he falls 
 at his post. There is no discharge in this war- 
 fare, and it will not be ended in our day. 
 
STIMULATING THE HOME CHURCH 165 
 
 " A geography will be the best help to a just 
 estimate of its immensity ; and the Bible the only 
 help to a just estimate of its difficulty and im- 
 portance, because that alone reveals to us the 
 depravity of the human heart and the value of 
 human souls. When our zeal wanes, let us re- 
 new it in our closets. When our courage fails, 
 let us strengthen ourselves in the Lord our God. 
 When our labors seem fruitless, let us go to the 
 sure promises. When we are tempted to despair 
 by reason of the ingratitude, opposition, and 
 hatred of those to whom we are giving our 
 money, our labor, and our lives, let us look unto 
 Jesus, our great example, and endure, as He did, 
 unto the end, 'for the joy that is set before us.' 
 We will try to tell you all the stirring facts the 
 Lord gives us, and give you all the information 
 our strength and time will allow, but do not de- 
 pend upon us for a motive, or the measure of 
 your zeal and consecration. No motive but a 
 loving obedience to Christ will sustain either you 
 or us to the end of this mighty work. May the 
 whole Church in all lands be soon brought up to 
 the requisite degree of faith and consecration." 
 
 The following is a letter written to a young 
 lady whom Mrs. Mateer had known eight years 
 before, inviting her to join the Tengchow circle : 
 
 " I am writing because I have something special 
 to say to you — to ask of you. But first promise 
 
i66 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 not to decide yea or nay until you have looked 
 at the question seriously, spread it out before 
 Jesus, and let Him decide it for you. He will do 
 it if you are really and heartily willing. 
 
 " My proposition is, that you give yourself to 
 the foreign missionary work. I know it is a very 
 serious undertaking for a young' woman who has 
 never been separated from her parents even for a 
 few months, and especially one who has gone 
 abroad but little, to start on a journey half-way 
 around the globe to spend her life with — for the 
 most part — strangers. 
 
 " But that is not the point from which to look 
 at this question. It is this : What has Jesus 
 done for you, what is He doing day by day, and 
 what do you yet hope from His rich grace ? In 
 view of all this, what are you willing to do for 
 Him ? What sacrifice can you make for Him to 
 be at all compared with the sacrifice He has 
 made for you ? The great command, ' Go ye 
 into all the world and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature,' is to every child of God, even to the 
 youngest, the weakest, the most ignorant. The 
 question each must decide is, ' How am / called 
 to help on this great work ? ' It may lie in going 
 to teach the heathen ; it may be by giving up 
 a very dear friend to go ; it may be chiefly 
 by a life of prayer and cheerful devotion to the 
 humblest duties. I think the first is perhaps 
 your duty, and my object in writing is to suggest 
 
STIMULATING THE HOME CHURCH 167 
 
 the subject to you, and if possible aid you in 
 making a decision. 
 
 " One reason I think you are called to the 
 missionary work is your fondness for teaching, 
 and the success which has attended your efforts. 
 The whole missionary work, as far as the human 
 agent is concerned, is teaching; and I have 
 known no instance of a successful teacher failing 
 in this work. This, then, is the great qualification 
 God has given you. If your gift is fully conse- 
 crated to Jesus, you are fit to be a missionary. 
 If it is not consecrated, you will not be, in the 
 highest sense, a successful teacher at home. 
 
 " Many people have vague ideas as to what 
 missionary work is. Missionaries and their work 
 are to them surrounded by a kind of religious 
 romance which seems very attractive in the dim 
 distance, but they have very little living interest 
 in the true picture. Nothing can be more real 
 and practical than the missionary work — I might 
 add, more monotonous, but it is just the monot- 
 ony of school life, teaching the same things over 
 and over to one class after another, year after 
 year, — the same lessons, but the class is ever 
 varying, and each individual learner brings new 
 interest and new incentives to exertion. 
 
 " As in teaching at home, so it is here ; some- 
 times one is encouraged to enthusiasm, some- 
 times ready to faint. Here, as there, faith and 
 perseverance will bring you through. The mis- 
 
i68 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 sionary life is one of toil and many trials, but it 
 is by no means all shadow ; indeed, it is far more 
 nearly all sunshine. 
 
 " You will find the work in an important sense 
 its own reward. Though you will see but little 
 of society, it will be made up of men and women 
 of education and refinement, many of whom 
 would adorn any society. You can have all the 
 comforts of a plain family at home. You will 
 find in the customs of these Oriental people many 
 striking comments on the Bible, and much of in- 
 terest. Learning a new language will improve 
 your mind. 
 
 " There will, of course, be much opposition to 
 your devoting yourself to this work. You will 
 often hear, ' Why go away there ? Are there not 
 heathen enough at home ? ' Of course there are. 
 Were there not many unbelieving Jews in Judea 
 when Christ bade His disciples go into all the 
 world? Were there not heathen enough in and 
 around Antioch, when Paul and Silas were sent 
 out thence as missionaries ? Were there no more 
 heathen in Asia, when Paul was called into Mace- 
 donia ? What claims have American heathen on 
 you that Chinese or Hindu heathen have not ? 
 
 " In the United States there must be at least 
 one minister for every two or three thousand per- 
 sons, besides all the Sabbath-school teachers and 
 other Christian men and women who are work- 
 ing and praying for the unconverted. In China, 
 
STIMULATING THE HOME CHURCH 169 
 
 counting ministers, and male and female teach- 
 ers, native and foreign, there is scarcely one re- 
 ligious teacher of any grade for a million. 
 
 " Women in Christian lands can never know 
 what they owe the Bible until they see the deep, 
 utter degradation, — mental, moral and physical 
 — of heathen women. And the wretched heathen 
 women are our sisters, as good by nature as we, 
 and as deserving of God's favor. If, then, we 
 have been singled out to receive such blessings, 
 shall we ' deny to them the lamp of life ' ? If the 
 watchman failed to warn the city, the guilt was 
 his. (See Ezekiel, thirty-third chapter.) 
 
 " I could write a volume on the need of teach- 
 ers here, especially earnest, self-denying women. 
 How shall I compress it into the space of one 
 letter ! I can only refer you to the first chapter 
 of Romans for a description of all heathen peo- 
 ple, and to the tenth chapter as to the way they 
 are to be brought out of it." 
 
 After advising the young lady to seek all light 
 possible on the subject, she says : " But I advise 
 you not to consult too much with human friends, 
 especially with those who have never given the 
 subject a serious thought. After eight years of 
 trial, and an average share of work and weari- 
 ness, and all the ordinary ills of this kind of life, 
 I have never for one moment regretted entering 
 upon it. The only regret I have ever felt was 
 that I did not begin earlier, that I might have 
 
I70 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 had more years to devote to it. My sister is of 
 the same mind. 
 
 " Separation from your family and friends will 
 be a severe trial, but He who calls for the sacri- 
 fice will sustain you and them. Should He call 
 you away from earth, could any human love stay 
 you ? Should He call you to the uttermost parts 
 of the earth to serve Him, may any mortal 
 oppose His will ? 
 
 "This question must be decided by yourself 
 in your closet. Do not say ' No ' unless you can 
 give a reason which you are sure will stand at 
 the bar of God ; nor ' Yes ' unless you can also 
 give a reason. Dr. Plummer says, ' It is a sin 
 to run when we are not called, as much as not to 
 run when we are called.' " 
 
 With regard to the position of a missionary's 
 wife, this is Mrs. Mateer's feeling : " Though a 
 missionary's wife may from whatever cause be 
 unable to do much direct missionary work her- 
 self, yet if she have the right spirit, her deep 
 sympathetic interest will be a great help to her 
 husband ; whereas one lacking this spirit will be a 
 decided handicap, if indeed she do not cause his 
 complete and pathetic failure." 
 
 Concerning single women she writes : " The 
 inconsiderate haste with which some women 
 have made up their minds to come to China 
 and their failure to appreciate the work to be 
 
STIMULATING THE HOME CHURCH 171 
 
 done, and the trials to be borne, have astonished 
 me. This has made me feel guilty, that when I 
 had opportunity to talk with young people at 
 home I did not enlarge and insist much on the 
 solemn responsibility of undertaking this work, 
 presenting it as a warfare in which there can be 
 few furloughs, and no honorable discharge but 
 death. I do not forget the longing that every 
 true woman has for a home, for I have been a 
 homeless orphan ; nor would I underestimate the 
 happiness of married life — no happy wife can. 
 I know, too, that it is no light thing for a woman 
 to leave friends and home and all the blessings 
 of a Christian land, and go out alone, to bear the 
 toils and cares, the responsibilities and disap- 
 pointments, the weariness and loneliness of a 
 missionary life in China. But God will give 
 grace even for this to every one whom He calls 
 to it. They who endure to the end will find deep 
 and abiding happiness in this work." 
 
 " One woman, after twelve years of single- 
 handed toil in this place, said on her death-bed : 
 ' If Christians at home only knew the blessedness 
 of this work, there would be nobody willing to 
 stay at home.' A whole-hearted devotion to it 
 will secure this happiness; nothing else will. 
 
 " A young woman who offers herself for this 
 work should be very sure that her temperament 
 and sense of duty will, through grace, sustain her 
 to the end, She should know her own mind 
 
172 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 and heart and body before she decides to be a 
 single missionary. She should come with the 
 simple and honest purpose of devoting her whole 
 life to the work, and she should throw all her 
 energies into it, expecting to bear her share of 
 the burdens, and to find her chief happiness in 
 the work." 
 
XIII 
 
 SUNSET AND EVENING BELLS 
 
 T 
 
 "^HIS life of gracious beauty and blessed 
 result drew painfully to its earthly end- 
 ing. It was on February i8, 1898, after 
 fourteen weeks of continuous and intense suffer- 
 ing that the grateful release came. During the 
 previous winter Mrs. Mateer had been compelled 
 to undergo a surgical operation. From this she 
 gradually recovered. But during the last few 
 years there had been many periods of complete 
 prostration, followed by shorter and shorter times 
 of activity, until in November, 1897, she lay down 
 never to rise again. The " silver cord " had un- 
 dergone such a long, continuous strain that noth- 
 ing medical skill could suggest could save it 
 from being " loosened." The rheumatic pains 
 subsided after the eighth week ; but the nervous 
 exhaustion increased more and more. She was 
 weary unto death, and restless in the extreme. 
 Sleep brought neither rest nor refreshment, and 
 constant changing of position no relief. Her 
 appetite failed, and the difficulty of taking nour- 
 ishment increased. Thus she continued suffer- 
 ing, and waiting, and longing for the end. 
 Throughout all these weeks of physical agony 
 
 173 
 
174 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 no murmur escaped her lips, — simply the prayer 
 for grace to bear all that her Lord might appoint. 
 At first she could not be reconciled to dying, for 
 there was still so much to do and so few to 
 do it; but her Saviour soon brought comfort, 
 and faith triumphed. When confronted with the 
 nearer prospect of death, her own unworthiness 
 seemed to overwhelm her for a season ; yet the 
 cloud soon passed and the light shone brightly 
 on her pathway as she approached the dark valley. 
 The nervous exhaustion that brought about 
 her death was the result of various physical 
 causes, some of them reaching back many years. 
 There was, however, a mental cause more potent 
 perhaps than the physical. It was the strain 
 put upon her mind and heart by the constant 
 stream of troubles and worries that the Chinese 
 poured into her ears. Not only the hundred 
 young men in the college, but all the women, 
 and most of the men in the Chinese church, 
 came to her with their plans and troubles of 
 every kind for advice and sympathy and help. 
 Her mind was, in this way, kept all the time 
 under a sort of tension that wore on the nervous 
 force. The long weeks of weariness seemed a 
 sort of vicarious penalty suffered on behalf of 
 those for whom she had planned and wrought 
 and prayed. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The funeral was remarkable. Although the 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING BELLS 175 
 
 students were home on vacation, the large church 
 was crowded with sorrowing Chinese, both 
 Christian and heathen, especially women, who 
 followed to the grave, knowing that the friend 
 who loved them best was gone. One of their 
 number voiced with trembling emphasis the com- 
 mon feeling when he said : " Alas, we have all 
 lost the support upon which we leaned." A 
 young college teacher in his address did not 
 hesitate to say that Mrs. Mateer had done what 
 no other woman had done or could do. His 
 praise was excessive, perhaps, but it was sincere, 
 and within the sphere of his knowledge it was 
 true. He said that a great part of the success of 
 the college was due to her, and that without her 
 it could not have succeeded as it had. 
 
 One said : " When a missionary dies, many 
 Chinese Christians look up through their tears 
 with rejoicing, and thank God that a true friend 
 now awaits them in heaven. When I think of 
 Mrs. Mateer I seem to see her standing at the 
 portals of the shining gates, welcoming with her 
 rare, sweet smile the poor, hesitating, timid soul 
 of a Chinese Christian." 
 
 Upon the death of Dr. Mateer, September 28, 
 1908, her remains were removed to Chef 00, 
 where she lies beside her husband in the beauti- 
 ful cemetery on the hill. 
 
 Mrs. Mateer, though dead, still lives in the 
 transformed lives of the many young men to 
 
176 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 whom her touch imparted the virtue of Christ- 
 like ideals and hopes, in the strength of which 
 they are laboring, suffering and praying for their 
 own people. She lives in the earnest words she 
 spoke by the wayside, in the village and in the 
 home ; in the pervasive influence of a noble life 
 that widens and deepens as the years roll on. 
 No pen can trace the fruitage of a life so well 
 lived and a work so well done. Even the analy^ 
 sis of a character of such richness is a difficult 
 undertaking. As one thinks of her, so many 
 lovely qualities flash their light upon one : her 
 sweet temper ; her delightful sense of humor, 
 proving often so serviceable a support to her pa- 
 tience and courage ; her tact and practical re- 
 sourcefulness ; her gentleness ; and along with a 
 firmness and decision that could seem almost 
 stern, the spontaneity, the touch of gaiety, the 
 welling up of fresh interest that kept for her to 
 the end the heart of a child. 
 
 Of her more marked characteristics we venture 
 to say that self-forgetfulness should stand pre- 
 eminent. Even during those long weeks of suf- 
 fering and weariness unto death, the first thought 
 of Mrs. Mateer was not for herself, but for those 
 who cared for her. Her soft, sweetly spoken 
 " Thank you " for the slightest service rendered, 
 will remain in the hearts of those who were priv- 
 ileged to be with her like a rare fragrance. 
 Equally touching and tender were her words of 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING BELLS 177 
 
 exhortation to every Chinese friend who came to 
 her bedside. When her mind was wandering 
 she would bring it back with a mighty effort, and 
 give just the right word to the right one. Usu- 
 ally the burden of her message was the sinful- 
 ness of sin, and Christ's pardoning love. Many 
 prayers were offered for her, especially by the 
 young men who had been under her instruction. 
 She constantly desired that these prayers might 
 be answered in blessings on the heads of those 
 who offered them. 
 
 Her husband says • " I started to Weihsien by 
 previous engagement on the nineteenth of August 
 to teach in the theological class. I did not know 
 how badly my wife was feeling at the time. She 
 held back her weakness and nervousness from 
 me, lest I should be hindered in doing the im- 
 portant work I was going to Weihsien to do. 
 All the while she kept writing hopeful letters, 
 thinking she would be better as the weather 
 should grow cool and bracing. But her appetite 
 and her strength continued to fail gradually until 
 she had to go to bed. Her niece took the re- 
 sponsibility of telegraphing me, when I came 
 home as soon as possible." What an eloquent 
 tribute ! As the previous pages attest, it was 
 simply in keeping with the principle of self-for- 
 getfulness that had ruled in all her life, and had 
 made her a Christlike power among the Chinese, 
 who are so quick o^ discernment. 
 
178 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 A fellow missionary says : " The memory of 
 Mrs. Mateer is very tender, full of all that is help- 
 ful and true. Her utterly unselfish life, her 
 Christlike character and her inspiring devotion 
 to His cause and service, endeared her to all." 
 An old friend writes : " Our heavenly Father, for 
 a reason we do not understand, which neverthe- 
 less we know was lovingly wise, never gave to 
 Mrs. Mateer the joy of motherhood ; but He 
 gave her in large measure the heart of mother- 
 hood, which spent the rich fullness of its mother- 
 ing love upon her schoolboys, and indeed upon 
 every one with whom she came in contact. We 
 rarely see a heart so much ' at leisure from itself, 
 to soothe and sympathize.' Freely and in utter 
 self-forgetfulness, she loved, ministered to and 
 watched over the hundreds of Chinese ' sons ' 
 and ' daughters ' whom God gave to her." 
 
 Humility of spirit must come next — the rare 
 gifts and graces, and the manifold achievements 
 kept by this "clothing of humility" free from 
 the stains of earth. What charm, and what 
 power in it all ! It was Mrs. Mateer's habit to 
 speak very humbly of her own attainments in the 
 Christian life and her share in the work accom- 
 plished. While in the home-land she once said : 
 " I have been able to do so little — it all comes 
 down to 'being a neighbor' to those Chinese 
 boys and women." The year before her death 
 she wrote: "Lately I have enjoyed a sense of 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING BELLS 179 
 
 God's nearness, and Jesus has seemed nearer 
 than ever before ; yet I do not enjoy prayer as I 
 ought to dj. Indeed I am a poor, weak Chris- 
 tian — very, to be filling so responsible a place. 
 I have always been credited above my deserts. 
 That is one of the rewards, perhaps, of being so 
 far away." 
 
 Little has been said about Mrs. Mateer's 
 prayer-life, partly because of its sacredness, and 
 partly because of her self-effacement and distaste 
 for devotional display. In speaking of consecra- 
 tion she thus expresses herself : " Somehow I be- 
 lieve in the kind that like charity ' vaunteth not it- 
 self.' I have not seen that God sends that kind 
 so much through holiness and consecration meet- 
 ings as through other channels, mostly painful, 
 but sometimes only the common effects of grace 
 on peculiarly adapted characteristics. Perhaps 
 it takes more grace to make some of us decent 
 Christians than to make others eminent saints." 
 But, in proportion as she distrusted her own 
 strength, did she rest her faith in the power of 
 prayer. Her sister, of kindred spirit, gathered a 
 company of us young missionaries around her 
 dying bed in order to urge us not to make the 
 fatal mistake of allowing work to crowd out the 
 time necessary for the cultivation of personal 
 piety. Mrs. Mateer says : " What a comfort that 
 so many loved ones pray for us and our work. 
 Many pray for the work, and never think that 
 
i8o CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 the workers are poor sinners like themselves,^ 
 needing constant supplies of grace, and therefore 
 needing the prayers of the Church." Again: 
 " I feel sure the success we have achieved is 
 largely in answer to faithful, fervent prayer at 
 home, and I wonder sometimes whether at the 
 great day it will not appear that the believing, 
 praying people at home have after all done the 
 work, while we have been getting the credit 
 for it." 
 
 Her capacity for devotion and enthusiasm 
 richly deserve mention. She put labor, and 
 strength, and heart into whatever she under- 
 took. With untiring industry and perseverance 
 she wrought, doing an amount of work even 
 when suffering from impaired health that would 
 have been a credit to any one. The influence of 
 all this was, of course, very stimulating. She was 
 a good listener, — all interested devotion to the 
 one with whom she was speaking, so that hearts 
 were unburdened to her as those of children to 
 their mother. Her pupils not only loved and 
 honored her, but they were led to do their very 
 best in every way for her, and for her approval, 
 while life-enthusiasms were kindled at the altar 
 of her consuming loyalty to Christ Jesus. She 
 had a beautiful capacity for joy in simple things, 
 and a nature gifted in finding occasions for hap- 
 piness and gratitude. Of her rare devotion to 
 her husband and her loyalty to all that engaged 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING BELLS i8i 
 
 him, it is difficult to speak. She often hid her- 
 self in his work, and she spent herself lavishly for 
 all that could further it. Speaking once to an 
 intimate friend of how a true wife's heart thrilled 
 as she heard her husband's steps, she neverthe- 
 less led the hstener's thought up to "Thy Maker 
 is thy Husband." The human love so precious 
 and beautiful but interpreted the supreme devo- 
 tion of her spirit. She was only happy as " Hid 
 in Him." 
 
 She had a broad sympathy and an inexhaust- 
 ible charity. Dr. EUinwood, the great Board 
 secretary, said : " I have for years thought of 
 her as a model. Certainly without a superior 
 anywhere, of either sex, in the whole missionary 
 force which I have known in these twenty-six 
 years. So full of broad sympathy and kindliness, 
 so absolutely balanced and level in common 
 sense, so genuine in piety, so peace-loving and 
 salutary in all her relations to other missionaries." 
 Dr. W. A. P. Martin says : " The dear one who 
 has gone I greatly admired for her quiet power, 
 unwearied devotion and inexhaustible charity." 
 She fulfilled Paul's injunction in Philippians ii. 3, 
 where (as we see by the original) he counsels us 
 " to lay our life down like a soft tapestry carpet, 
 in kindly thoughts and gracious sympathies and 
 helpful services, in order that the weary, bruised 
 feet of other people may find ease and comfort 
 on the road." And God only knows how for 
 
1 82 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 many of the Chinese " the ways of life are very 
 rough and flinty, and the sharp, jagged edges of 
 circumstance cut the feet most sorely." 
 
 Nor did she lose touch with those widely sepa- 
 rated from her. In writing to a relative whose 
 marriage had taken her into another denomi- 
 nation, and to a distant home, Mrs. Mateer says : 
 " I would love to see you and your children. It 
 is sad to think of you so far from your friends — 
 the circumstances increase the miles. We do not 
 read the same papers, we do not have the same 
 church acquaintances, we are not interested in 
 the same special meetings. While it is all the 
 Lord's work, our hearts are not so large as His, 
 and able to comprehend so many loves and in- 
 terests. I have always felt these things to be a 
 bond or a loss as the case may be. Perhaps all 
 this is good for us to draw us nearer our Saviour 
 and away from human helps. I have always 
 been so prone to trust in human arms. Let us 
 do our best in our own little sphere, watching 
 that we do not grow narrow and hard ; watching, 
 too, lest we miss some of His leadings to service 
 because it does not come in the hne we ex- 
 pected." 
 
 Her judgment was as sound as her sympa- 
 thies were broad. Her husband felt that her 
 counsel and her praise were always to him be- 
 yond price. He consulted her on all occasions, 
 and he was mightily influenced and aided in his 
 
SUNSET AND EVENING BELLS 183 
 
 work by her quick, unerring judgment and ster- 
 ling good sense. Indeed, she occupied the place 
 of counsel-general both to the missionaries and 
 to the Chinese. Dr. DuBose says : " In her 
 great work she was all heart, yet keeping a well- 
 balanced head. This is very rare." Another 
 says : " She was blessed with a level head, and 
 characterized by independence and force of 
 character. She had the advantage in her early 
 youth of a thorough grounding in Bible truths, 
 the Shorter Catechism, and the religious works 
 found in the Christian home seventy years ago. 
 She believed with all her heart that the Gospel is 
 the ' power of God unto salvation.' Having 
 made the Bible a lifelong study, she was never 
 troubled with doubts, or with fanciful interpreta- 
 tions. As she believed, so she lived." 
 
 Indeed, Dr. and Mrs. Mateer together evinced 
 a remarkable and sustained wisdom in their 
 planning and working for the Christian conquest 
 of China, — a wisdom of forty-seven years ago, 
 which the after developments and the present 
 great needs and changes serve only to justify 
 and glorify. They made their aim the building 
 of Christian character, such as would stand by its 
 colors under all circumstances, and constitute the 
 only possible foundation for a renovated and 
 stable empire. In this they chose education, as, 
 for them, the best way to multiply themselves in 
 influence and saving power. With the ability to 
 
1 84 CHARACTER-BUILDING IN CHINA 
 
 view a constantly broadening horizon, they gave 
 untiring attention to details and the conquering 
 of small worries. They wrought patiently and 
 quietly for a success that has surely strengthened 
 and justified itself throughout the years. 
 
 For both these earnest souls "to live was 
 Christ." The strong and beautiful Hfe sketched 
 in this little volume drew its inspiration from the 
 Cross. From thence came the fragrance of its 
 graces, its abiding cheerfulness in the midst of 
 suffering and exhausting toil, its concentrated 
 and undivided purpose. From thence came also 
 its " burdensome drain of sacrificial desire," and 
 in Christ was its glory and its crown of rejoicing. 
 Could Mrs. Mateer speak to us now, she would 
 say, as her living here always said, " Do all to 
 the glory of God." She would echo the words, 
 
 " Yea, through life, death, through sorrow and 
 through sinning 
 Christ shall suffice thee, for He hath sufficed ; 
 Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning, 
 Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ." 
 
BIOGRAPHY 
 
 ROBSRT R SPEER, D. D. 
 
 The Foreign Dodlor : "The HaUm Sahib" 
 
 A Biography of Joseph Plumb Cochran, M.D., of 
 Fersia. Illustrated, izxao, cloth, net $1.50. 
 
 Dr. Cochran came to a position of power in Western 
 Persia which made his life as interesting as a romance. He 
 was one of the central figures in the Kurdish invasion of 
 Persia, and was the chief means of saving the city of Ura- 
 mia. In no other biography is there as full an account of the 
 actual medical work done by the medical missionary, and of 
 the problem of the use of the political influence acquired by 
 a man of Dr. Cochran's gifts and opportunities. 
 
 HENRY D. PORTER, M.D., Z).D. 
 
 William Scott Ament ^^.^d'^TJ^fV^nina. 
 
 Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50. 
 
 A biography of one of the most honored missionaries of 
 
 the Congregational Church, whose long and effective service in 
 
 China has inscribed his name high in the annals of those 
 
 whose lives have been given to the uplift of their fellowmen. 
 
 MARY GRIDLEY ELLINWOOD 
 
 Frank Field EllinWOOd Freshman F%"%ard 
 
 His Life and Work. Illustrated, cloth, net $i.oo. 
 
 A charming biography of one of the greatest missionary 
 leaders of the Nineteenth Century. — Robert B, Speer, 
 
 ANTONIO ANDREA ARRIGHI 
 
 The Story of Antonio the Galley Sl»ve 
 
 With Portrait, i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 "Reads like a romance, and the wonderful thing about 
 it is that it is true. A fervid religious experience, a passion 
 for service and good intellectual equipment were his splendid 
 preparation for a great missionary work among his country- 
 men in America." — Zion's Herald. ^ 
 
 GEORGE MULLER 
 
 iXi^nrat^ Mii1<kVr The Modern Apostle of Faith 
 Oeorge IVlUUSr, gy Frederick G. Warne. 
 
 New Edition, including the Later Story of the Bristol Orphan 
 Horn: Illustrated, cloth, net 750. 
 
 "What deep attractiveness is found in this life of the 
 great and simple-hearted apostle." — Christian Advocate, 
 
 KINGSTON DE GRUCHE 
 
 Dr. Apricot of "Heaven-Below" 
 
 Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "No one who has read this book will ever afterwards 
 repeat the threadbare objection, "I don't br'"«»» in mis- 
 sions." — Continent, 
 
MISSIONARY— TRAVELS 
 
 In the Valley of the Nile 
 
 A Record of Missionary Enterprise in Egypt. 
 Princeton Lectures^ 
 (Net, $1.00. CHARLES R.WATSON 
 
 "The author carefully traces the early rapid spread of 
 'Christian faith into ancient Egypt and the development of the 
 Coptic church, and the spread of the Moslem faith over Chris- 
 tianized Egypt. The earlier and more transient Moravian 
 missionary efforts are described and then the American Pres- 
 byterian work which has achieved such success. A map, index 
 and bibliography are appended. This is an excellent refer- 
 ence book as well as informing traveler's handbook." — Watch' 
 man. 
 
 The Missionary Enterprise 
 
 A Concise History of Its Objects, Methods and Extension. 
 
 Net, $1.25. EDWIN MUNSELL BUSS 
 
 As compiler of TTie Encyclopaedia of Missions and in hii 
 work as editor and writer of special articles, the author 
 stored up an immense amount of valuable knowledge on the 
 subject of Missions. The present work is not merely a re- 
 vision of the author's earlier work, "llie Concise History 6£ 
 Missions," but a thoroughly re-written work, considerably 
 extended as to scope and method of analysis, and including 
 the latest data obtainable. 
 
 Missionary Experiences During Nineteen 
 
 Centuries ^^y Lectures, igo7. 
 
 In press. W. T. WHITLEY 
 
 The story of missions in five continents, differs from pre- 
 vious works of this character in that it is written from a view 
 point entirely historical. The defeats are considered as fully 
 as the victories; pitfalls to be avoided as well as examples to 
 be followed. 
 
 Adventures With Four-Footed Folk 
 
 and Other Creatures of the Animal World. 
 
 Illustrated, $1.00. BELLE M. BRA!N 
 
 The author has established a reputation through her pop- 
 ular missionary readings. No one is able to detect an inter- 
 esting story more quickly. In her latest work she has selected 
 some of the most thrilling stories from the mission field, 
 dealing with animals of all sort, from Egerton R. Youngj'i 
 sledge dogs in the North West to the man-eating tiger in 
 India. 
 
MISSIONARY— TRAVELS 
 
 The Call of Korea 
 
 lUustrated, net, 75c H. 0. UNDERWOOD 
 
 "Dr. Underwood knows Korea, itS territory, its people, 
 and its needs, and his book has the special value tnat at- 
 taches to expert judgment. The volume is packed with in- 
 formation, but it is written in sp agreeable a style that it is 
 as attractive as a novel, and particularly well suited to 
 serve as a guide to our young people in their study of mis- 
 sions." — The Examiner, 
 
 TtiSn(<< Krti««nn A Collection of Sketches and Anecdotes. 
 1 ningS ivurcan Diplomatic and Missionary. 
 
 Illustrated, net. $1.25. HORACE N. ALLEN 
 
 Gathered from a twenty years' residence in Korea and neigh- 
 boring countries by the late Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
 plenipotentiary of the United States to Korea. 
 
 Breaking Down Chinese Walls 
 
 From a Doctor's Viewpoint. 
 
 Illustrated, net, $1.00. ELLIOTT I. OSGOOD 
 
 "Dr. Osgood was for, eight years a physician at Chu 
 Cbeo, and conducted a hospital and dispensary, visiting and 
 preaching the Gospel in the villages round about. He writes 
 from experience. The object is to show the influence and 
 power of the medical missionary service, and of the daily 
 lives of the missionaries upon the natives, told in a most in- 
 teresting manner by the record of the living examples." — 
 United Presbyterian. 
 
 Present-Day Conditions in China 
 
 Boards, net, 50c MARSHALL BROOMHALL, 
 
 "This book is very impressive to those who do know 
 something of "present-day conditions in China," and most 
 startling to those who do not. Maps, tables and letterpress 
 combine to give a marvelous presentation of facts." — Bugene 
 Stock, Church Missionary Society, 
 
 The New Horoscope of Missions 
 
 Net, $1.00. JAMBS S. DENNIS 
 
 "Dr. Dennis, who has long been a close student of for- 
 eign missions, and speaks with authority, gives in this volume 
 a broad general view of the present aspects of the missionary 
 situation, as foundation for 'the new horoscope' which he 
 aims to give. The book is made up of lectures delivered at 
 the McCormick Theological Seminary on The John H. Con- 
 ver»e Foundation." — Exomintr, 
 
FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 2. S. LOFTIS, M. D. 
 
 A Message from Batang 
 
 The Diary of Z. S. Loftis, M.D. Illustrated, 
 I2mo, cloth, net 75c. 
 
 Dr. Loftis went out to Tibet as a medical missionary of 
 the Disciples Church. His diary contains the events of the 
 outgoing trip together with incidents of the daily life of a 
 missionary in this "closed" land. 
 
 HON. WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 The Fruits of the Tree 
 
 l6mo, boards, net 3Sc. 
 
 This is the address which Mr. Bryan delivered at the 
 World's Missionary Conference at Edinburgh and contaiiis 
 his views on missions — views which are the result of bia 
 personal and painstaking investigation on foreign fields. 
 
 HELEN S. DYER 
 
 Pandita Ramabai 
 
 The Story of Her Life. Second Edition. Illus- 
 trated, i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 
 
 "The story of a wonderful life, still in the midcareer of 
 high usefulness. 'Pandita' should be known to all American 
 women." — The Outlook. 
 
 MINERVA L GUTHAPFEL 
 
 The Happie^ Girl in Korea 
 
 And Other Sketches from the Land of Morning 
 Olm. Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net 60c. 
 
 These sketch stories of actual life in Korea by a mis- 
 Konary of experience and insight portray conditions of real 
 life; they combine humor, pathos and vivid description. 
 
 ^OHN JACKSON 
 
 Secretary to the Missioti to Lepers in India and the East. 
 
 Mary Reed, Missionary to the Lepers 
 
 New Edition. Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net soc. ; 
 paper, net 250. 
 
 G. T. B. DAVIS 
 
 Korea for Chri^ 
 
 Illustrated, paper, net 2Sc. 
 An effective report of the recent revivals in Korea told 
 by an eye witness, who himself participated in the work. 
 
FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 ROBERT E. SPEER The Cole Lectures for 191 1. 
 
 Some Great Leaders in the World 
 Movement i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 Mr. Speer in his characteristic inspiring way tias pre- 
 sented the key note of the lives of six of the World's great- 
 est missionaries: Raymond Lull, the crusading spirit in mis- 
 sions; William Carey, the problems of the pioneer; Alexander 
 Duff, Missions and Education; George Bowen, the ascetic 
 ideal in missions; John I^awrence, politics and missions; and 
 Charles G. Gordon, modern missionary knight-errancy, 
 
 S. M. ZWEMER, F.R.G.S., and Others 
 
 Islam and Missions 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.50. 
 This volume presents the papers read at the Second 
 Conference on Missions to Moslems, recently held in Luck- 
 now, India. The contributors are all experts of large ex- 
 perience in such mission effort. 
 
 VAN SOMMER, ANNIE, and Others 
 
 Daylight in the Harem 
 
 A New Era for Moslem Women. In Press, 
 
 Woman's work for Woman is nowhere more needed than 
 on the part of Christian women for their sisters of Islam. 
 '^t is a most difficult field of service, but this volume by au- 
 thors long and practically interested in this important Chris- 
 tian ministry, derronstrates how effectually this work has 
 opened and is being carried forward with promising results. 
 
 ROBERTA, HUME, P.P. 
 
 An Interpretation of India's Religious 
 
 Mi tfl'rfcfl'^r Introduction bv President King ^ LL^D, 
 ni&lOry o/Oberlm College 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 The author of this careful, though popular, study, is 
 eminently qualified to deal with the subject of his thought- 
 ful volume. Equipped for this purpose through long resi- 
 dence in India and intimate study of India's religious his- 
 tory, what he says will be accepted as the estimate and in* 
 terpfetation of an authority. 
 
 MARGARET E. BURTON 
 
 The Education of Women in China 
 
 Tllustrated, i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 The author of this scholarly study of the Chinese woman 
 and education is the daughter of Prof. Ernest E- Burton, of 
 
 the "^Jniversity of Chicago The work is probably the 
 
 most thorough study of an important phase of the econmnic 
 development of the world's most populous country that has 
 appeared. 
 
FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 JAMES F. LOVE, D.J. 
 
 The Unique Message and Universal 
 Mission of Christianity 
 
 l2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 So condensed, fresh and vigorous is his style that he at- 
 tracts and holds the attention and interest of the reader and 
 renders attractive and almost fascinating the discussion of 
 subjects which are sometimes supposed to be dull and heavy.*' 
 
 — Biblical Recorder. 
 EMILY T. SHEETS 
 
 In Kali's Country: Tales from Sunny India 
 Illustrated, izmo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "An entertaining little book of stories from India, told 
 by the wife of an American missionary." — The Standard, 
 
 HOME MISSIONS 
 
 HOME MISSION STUDY COURSE 
 
 Conservation of National Ideals 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net soc. ; i2mo, paper, net 30c. 
 
 lA series of most important themes by well-known 
 writers, specialists fully qualified for such work. 
 
 KATHERINE R. CROWELL 
 
 "Best Things in America" 
 
 The Home Mission Junior Text Book for 1911-12. 
 
 i6mo, cloth, net 40c. ; paper, net 250. 
 "The author has vivacity of style, close sympathy and 
 high ideals of service," — Over Sea and Land, Philadelphia. 
 
 JOSEPH ERNEST McAFEE 
 
 World Missions from the Home Base 
 
 121110, cloth, net 75c. 
 
 The added emphasis being given to the missionary work 
 of the American Church in foreign field is apt to cause 
 neglect of the enormous needs for purely missionary effort 
 throughout our own great land. This work is exceedingly 
 well presented in this practical little volume. 
 
 JAMES E. Mcculloch 
 
 Author of "The Open Church for the Unchurched.*' 
 
 A Narrative 
 f Settlement Life. 
 
 The Mastery of Love ^^^a Narrative 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 "The hardship, the humor, the joy, the despair of city 
 mission work are all reflected in this chronicle of haps and 
 mishaps, ups and downs — a chronicle so well told that the 
 reader will be tempted to believe it fiction instead of the 
 actual record that it is." — Chris. Workers Magazine.