Calvin Wilson Mateer, forty-five years a missionary in Shantung, China

by D. W. Fisher

In connection with this, two characteristics of his inner life are so evident as to demand special notice. One of these was his convictions as to religious truth. He believed that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the Word of God, and he was so sure that this is radically essential in the faith of a missionary that he was not ready to welcome any recruit who was adrift on this subject. He believed also with like firmness in the other great evangelical doctrines set forth in the symbols and theologies of the orthodox churches. His own creed was Calvinistic and Presbyterian; yet he was no narrow sectarian. He was eager to coöperate with the missionaries of other denominations than his own; all that he asked was that they firmly hold to what he conceived to be the essentials of Christianity. Because he believed them so strongly, these also were the truths which he continually labored to bring home to the people. In a memorial published by Dr. Corbett concerning him, he says:

Nearly thirty years ago I asked an earnest young man who applied for baptism, when he first became interested in the truth. He replied: “Since the day I heard Dr. Mateer preach at the market near my home, on the great judgment, when everyone must give an account to God. His sermon made such an impression on my mind that I had no peace until I learned to trust in Jesus as my Saviour.” An able Chinese preacher, who was with me in the interior, when the news of Dr. Mateer’s death reached us, remarked, “I shall never forget the wonderful sermon Dr. Mateer preached a few weeks ago in the Chinese church at Chefoo, on conscience.” This was the last sermon he was permitted to preach. Salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, man’s sinfulness and need of immediate repentance, and faith, and the duty of every Christian to live a holy life and constantly bear witness for Jesus, were the great truths he always emphasized. He died in the faith of the blessed gospel he so ably preached for nearly half a century.

Hand in hand with these great convictions went an absolute loyalty to duty. To this he subordinated everything else. The reason why he toiled with his own hands, on buildings, on machinery, on apparatus, was not because he would rather do this than preach Christ, but because he was convinced that the situation was such that he could not with a good conscience refuse to perform that labor. It was not his preference to give long years to the making of the Mandarin version of the Scriptures; he did it because plainly it was his duty to engage in this wearisome task. He fought with his pen his long battle for Shen as the word to be used in Chinese as the name of God; and even when left in a commonly conceded minority, still refused to yield, only because he believed that in so doing he was standing up for something that was not only true but of vital importance to Christianity in China. His unwillingness under protracted pressure to introduce English into the curriculum of the Tengchow school and college, the heartbreak with which he saw the changes made in the institution after its removal to Wei Hsien, were all due not to obstinancy but to convictions of duty as he saw it.

A man of this sort,—strong in intellect, firm of will, absolutely loyal to what he conceives to be his duty,—travels a road with serious perils along its line. A loss of balance may make of him a bigot or a dangerous fanatic. Even Dr. Mateer had “the defects of his qualities.” He did not always make sufficient allowance for persons who could not see things just as he did. He sometimes unwarrantably questioned the rectitude of others’ conduct when it did not conform to his own conception of what they ought to have done. But these defects were not serious enough greatly to mar his usefulness or to spoil the beauty of his character. His wisdom as a rule, his rectitude, his entire consecration to the service of God in the work of missions, his wealth of heart, after all, were so unquestionable that any wounds he inflicted soon healed; and he was in an exceptional degree esteemed and revered by all who came into close touch with him.

Was Dr. Mateer a very “spiritually-minded man”? It is not strange that this question was raised, though rarely, by some one who saw only the outside of his life, and this at his sterner moments. He even did much of his private praying when he was walking up and down in his room, or taking recreation out on the city wall, and when no one but wife or sister knew what he was doing. One had to be admitted to the inner shrine of his heart to appreciate the fervor of his piety.

VII
DOING THE WORK OF AN EVANGELIST

“I have traveled in mule litters, on donkeys, and on foot over a large part of the province of Shantung, preaching from village to village, on the streets, and by the wayside. Over the nearer portions I have gone again and again. My preaching tours would aggregate from twelve thousand to fifteen thousand miles, including from eight thousand to twelve thousand addresses to the heathen.”—AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 1897.

The first thing which Mateer set himself to do, after he arrived at Tengchow, was to acquire the language of the people. The difficulties which the Chinese tongue presents to the foreigner are too well known to need recital here, nor was it easier to Mateer than to other persons possessed of good ability and thorough education. In January, 1902, at the request of Secretary Speer, he prepared for the use of the Board of Missions a paper on the subject of “Missionaries and the Language.” In it he does not profess to be telling his own experience, and yet it is largely an exhibit of what he had himself done. In the introductory paragraph he says:

One of the tasks, and to many one of the trials, of missionary life, is the learning of a new, and often a difficult language. So far as the message of the gospel is concerned, the tongue is tied until the language is learned. I set it down as a first principle, that every missionary should go out with a distinct and fixed determination to learn the language and to learn it well. Let there be no shrinking from it, no half measures with it. Laxity of this purpose in this matter is unworthy of anyone who is called to be a missionary. When I hear a young missionary, after a few weeks or months on the field, saying, “I hate this language; who can learn such outlandish gibberish as this?” my opinion of his fitness for the work at once suffers a heavy discount. Every young missionary should consider it his or her special business to fall in love with the language as quickly as possible.