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

by D. W. Fisher

There is no record of any itineration again until the latter part of February, 1869. That trip was not long in duration or very extensive in its territory. Julia and her sister Maggie accompanied Dr. Mateer and were able to reach large numbers of women with the gospel. July 21 of the same year he and Julia went on a tour of twelve weeks, their main objective being Chow Yuen, where Miao, a zealous young convert, was opening a chapel. The story as to him can most appropriately be told in another chapter.

On November 10 of the same year Dr. Mateer and Julia began a journey which lasted twenty-four days, during which they traveled about two hundred and fifty miles, some of the road being very hilly and rough, and the weather cold. Their course was directed to certain localities where there were converts, and where a beginning had been made by these native Christians to give the gospel to their neighbors. One of these places was Laichow fu, at which two of these had been spreading the light around them, one of them having given a commodious chapel, with a guest room attached, in which the Mateers lodged. During a stay of three days they preached to large numbers; and especially on the last day all opposition was swept away, and men and women came in crowds. In a village in the district of Ping Tu they conducted service in a little chapel on the Sabbath. In a letter to one of the secretaries of the Board he said:

The chapel was so crowded that we were barely able to have any regular service for the benefit of the native Christians. We had finally to postpone our principal service till after night. I baptized five, the four who had previously been accepted, and one other who, though not very well instructed, was so earnest in his profession of faith that we did not feel that it would be right to refuse him. After this the Lord’s Supper was administered. The circumstances made it one of the most interesting services of the kind I have ever been privileged to conduct. At the farthest point at which the gospel has yet got a foothold, in a house set apart by a native Christian for the worship of the true God, the majority of the company having never before participated in such a service, the circumstances were altogether such as to make the occasion one long to be remembered.

On February 13, 1873, he and Crossett began a tour that lasted about three months and carried them far into the interior of Shantung. They traveled in all about a thousand miles, and preached and sold books in over a hundred cities and towns. Once a man threatened Mateer with a manure fork, and once he was struck by a stone thrown in a crowd by some unknown miscreant. The usual epithet for foreigners saluted them; but, on the whole, they escaped any serious molestation. On this trip they visited Tai An, the great temple, and the sacred mountain, and ascended the steps to its summit. For a week they remained preaching in the temple to the crowds. They also went to the tomb of Confucius, and to the magnificent temple dedicated to the sage, in that neighborhood. At that date not many foreigners had seen these Chinese shrines; but now they have been so often described that it would scarcely be justifiable to cite the full and interesting record made by Mateer in his Journal as to what he saw and did at these places. Thence they proceeded as far as the capital, Tsinan fu, where Mateer remained for eighteen days, while Crossett went on a journey still a couple of hundred miles farther to the north and west, in company with an agent of the Scottish Bible Society, which had been canvassing the province for six or eight years. At the close of this tour they regarded the work of book-selling for most of Shantung as so far completed as henceforth to deserve a more subordinate place. During part of his stay at the capital Mateer preached and sold books, and part of the time he remained in his hired lodgings to receive visitors, of whom he had not a few. To him one of the interesting sights was the Yellow River. On their return journey they took in Tsingchow fu, and also Ping Tu, where the Christians then were terrified by persecution.

After this he made only one more exclusively evangelistic itineration. The care of the infant churches and other duties called him to continue to go longer and shorter distances from home; and in connection with this he did a great deal of preaching here and there by the way. For instance, in 1881 he attended a meeting of the Mission at Tsinan fu, and incidentally he preached in a hundred and sixty-three villages. It was travel for the specific purpose of carrying the gospel into wholly unevangelized regions that he ceased to perform. In a friendly letter written to his cousin, Mrs. Gilchrist, as early as June 28, 1875, he said:

The first years I was in China I traveled a good deal, and preached and sold books in the streets. I have not done so much of it the last two or three years, having been more closely engaged in my school. The younger men in the mission have been doing it chiefly. I am preparing a number of books for the press, and this has taken a good deal of time, and will take time in the future.

That final evangelistic itineration was made in 1878, and lasted from the middle of October to the middle of November. It was out toward the general region of Ping Tu and Laichow fu. The party consisted of Mateer and Mills, Mrs. Mateer and Mrs. Shaw, and a couple of Chinese assistants. Mrs. Mateer and Mrs. Shaw visited the native Christians while the men went to districts where there were no churches. In a letter to the Board Mateer said:

We each hired a donkey to carry our bedding and books, while we walked from village to village, and preached in the streets. I preached in this way in one hundred and ninety villages, and Mr. Mills in about as many. We went aside from the great roads into villages never before visited by any foreign missionary. We had audiences of from eight or ten, up to two or three hundred. In many cases we had a goodly proportion of women as hearers. Our reception was very various, for which in most cases we have no means of accounting. In some cases many came out to see and hear us. In other cases no one seemed inclined to pay any attention to us, and a considerable time would elapse before we would succeed in drawing a company to preach to. In one village I failed entirely to get anyone to listen. A goodly number saw us, but they passed by without stopping. One boy ventured to ask where we came from, when instantly a man near by at work reproved him for speaking to us. My assistant and I sat and waited about half an hour, and then went on to the next village. We carried a few books in our hands as a sort of advertisement of our business, and to give to such as would accept them. Sometimes the books were readily accepted, and we could have given away any number; but frequently not a soul would accept a book. No doubt some would have liked very well to have a book, but they were ashamed to accept it from the hated foreigner in the presence of so many of their neighbors and acquaintances. Only in two or three cases was any open hostility shown us, and in these it was confined to two or three individuals who failed to carry the crowd with them, so that in spite of their attempts to scatter our audience we still had plenty of hearers.

Then as to the value of this kind of missionary effort he added an estimate from which he never deviated, and which in substance he continued to repeat:

This method of work is very excellent, and at the same time very laborious. It reaches obscure places, and a class of people—those who stay at home—not otherwise reached. To be successful it must be pursued at a time of year when the people are somewhat at leisure.