TENGCHOW MISSION COMPOUND, FROM THE NORTH
Extreme left, Entrance to Dr. Hayes’ House. Behind this, part of back of Dr. Mateer’s House. Foreground, Vegetable Gardens belonging to Chinese
The Mateer house stands on the compound of the mission of the Presbyterian Board, which is inside and close to the water gate in the city wall. About it, as the years went by, were erected a number of other buildings needed for various purposes. The whole, being interspersed with trees, combines to make an attractive scene.
There was nothing pretentious about the house, but it was comfortable, and suited to their wants; and it was all the more dear to them because to such a large degree it had been literally built by themselves. Here for more than thirty-one years Julia presided, and here she died. After that Dr. Mateer’s niece, Miss Margaret Grier, took charge previous to her marriage to Mason Wells, and continued for some years subsequent to that event. To this house still later Dr. Mateer brought Ada, who was his helpmeet in his declining years, and who still survives. This was the home of Dr. Mateer from 1867 to 1904. It was in it and from it as a center that he performed by far the larger part of his life work. Here the Mandarin Revision Committee held its first meeting.
It was always a genuine home of the most attractive type. What that means in a Christian land every reader can in a good degree understand; but where all around is a mass of strange people, saturated with ignorance, prejudice, and the debased morality consequent on idolatry, a people of strange and often repulsive habits of living, the contrast is, as the Chinese visitors often used to say, “the difference between heaven and hell.” But what most of all made this little dwelling at Tengchow a home in the truest sense was the love that sanctified it. Dr. Mateer used in his later years frequently to say: “In the thirty-five years of our married life, there never was a single jar.” Nor was this true because in this sphere the one ruled, and the other obeyed; the secret of it was that between husband and wife there was such complete harmony that each left the other supreme in his or her department.
Here many visitors and guests received a welcome and an entertainment to which such as survive still revert with evidently delightful recollections. This seems to be preëminently true of some who were children at the time when they enjoyed the hospitalities of that home. Possibly some persons who have thought that they knew Dr. Mateer well, may be surprised at the revelation thus made. One of those who has told her experience is Miss Morrison, whose father was a missionary. He died at Peking, and subsequently his widow and their children removed to one of the southern stations of the Presbyterian Mission. It is of a visit to this new home at Tengchow that Miss Morrison writes. She says:
Two of the best friends of our childhood were Dr. Calvin Mateer and his brother John. We spent two summers at Dr. Mateer’s home in Tengchow, seeking escape from the heat and malaria of our more southern region. It could not have been an altogether easy thing for two middle-aged people to take into their quiet home four youngsters of various ages; but Dr. and Mrs. Mateer made us very welcome, and if we disturbed their peace we never knew it. I remember Mrs. Mateer as one of the most sensible and dearest of women, and Dr. Mateer as always ready in any leisure moment for a frolic. We can still recall his long, gaunt figure, striding up and down the veranda, with my little sister perched upon his shoulders and holding on by the tips of his ears. She called him “the camel,” and I imagine that she felt during her rides very much the same sense of perilous delight that she would have experienced if seated on the hump of one of the tall, shaggy beasts that we had seen swinging along, bringing coal into Peking.
Dr. Mateer loved a little fun at our expense. What a beautiful, mirthful smile lit up his rugged features when playing with children! He had what seemed to us a tremendous ball,—I suppose that it was a football,—which he used to throw after us. We would run in great excitement, trying to escape the ball, but the big, black thing would come bounding after us, laying us low so soon as it reached us. Then with a few long steps he would overtake us, and beat us with his newspaper till it was all in tatters. Then he would scold us for tearing up his paper. I remember not quite knowing whether to take him in earnest, but being reassured so soon as I looked up into the laughing face of my older sister.
Of other romps she also tells at length. Several old acquaintances speak of his love of children, and of his readiness to enter into the playfulness of their young lives. He dearly loved all fun of an innocent sort; perhaps it is because of the contrast with his usual behavior that so many persons seem to put special emphasis on this feature of his character.