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

by D. W. Fisher

One of the minor but notable honors that came to Dr. Mateer was the celebration of his seventieth birthday at Wei Hsien. The Chinese have a curious custom as to the birthday of the emperor, and perhaps of other distinguished persons; they celebrate it a year, a month, and a day in advance of the true date. This custom was followed on the occasion of Dr. Mateer’s seventieth birthday. An eyewitness has given the following graphic description of the affair:

“The alumni and students of the college planned the “birthday party”; and a most elaborate affair it was. In the morning a long procession of hired rejoicers, with gay banners and doleful native bands, marched into the compound from the city and were reviewed at the great gate by Dr. Mateer and the college faculty. Wasn’t it a fortunate thing that the doctor-of-laws hood of Dr. Mateer agreed so well with the Chinese idea of crimson as the most appropriate color for any celebration? At the chapel, which was packed to the limit with natives and out-of-town guests, presentation speeches which none but Orientals would ever have sat through, and responses were made, world without end. The most successful native pastor in this part of China, who was once Dr. Mateer’s table boy, spoke first. The highest officials of the country were present in all their grandeur, looking properly haughty and impressive,—though I shall never cease feeling that the typical expression of dignity and authority in China resembles the lime-in-the-mouth look more closely than anything else. If a concrete argument for the existence of the college were necessary, I can think of none better than a look at the alumni. Such splendid, manly fellows they were, with keen, intelligent faces! Some have become wealthy business men, who show their appreciation; and many are native pastors and teachers. A double quartet of college students furnished the music; and it was remarkable how well they sang the complicated part tunes. They have had no regular training, but have kept at it by themselves, and have surprised us all by their progress. But for the music, the real, soul-uplifting music, give me the native band! Imagine several bagpipes and flutes, diminutive drums, and two or three toy trumpets which sound only one note; and then conceive of each player carrying on an independent enterprise, and you may know something about the Chinese native band. It is too rare for words. Large bunches of firecrackers fastened on tripods, and cannon crackers, were used all through the festivities, so that it seemed exactly like the Fourth of July. A Chinese feast was given to all the invited guests, and the rabble from the villages near by encamped on the compound and ate the lunches they had carried about with them all morning in their handkerchiefs. It was a great day for the college, and a great occasion for the village people; but most demoralizing to language study. The gold-embroidered, scarlet banners were so many and so immense that since that one day in the church no place has been found sufficiently large to hang them.”

In the general section of China where he lived he made many journeys. Over that part of Shantung situated to the east of the Yellow River he traveled often, and far and wide. Several times he visited Peking. Once, as we have seen, he went down the Grand Canal, to Nanking, and the lower Yangtse. Frequently he steamed up and down the coast to Shanghai, and once as far south as Ningpo. But those immense and populous provinces situated in the west and south of China he never visited, not because he was not interested in them, or could not afford the expense, but because he could not spare the time. In the spring of 1868 the “Shenandoah,” an American war steamer, came to Tengchow on its way to Korea, where search was to be made for any survivors that might remain from the “General Sherman,” lost there two years before. The “Shenandoah” wanted an interpreter, and by general consent the duty seemed to fall on Dr. Mateer, so that he fell constrained to accept, though the health of his wife and other affairs rendered this very inconvenient. The cruise lasted about six weeks, and carried them to several places on the west coast of Korea, and among these to the river Pyeng Yang, since so familiar to readers of missionary journals, and to those who followed the Japanese troops on their march against the Russians in the recent war. That was then a “forbidden land” to foreigners, and the expedition found it difficult to get into peaceable or forcible communication with officials or other natives, and accomplished almost nothing. In the light of the fuller present knowledge of that politically unhappy but religiously hopeful country the observations of the interpreter or of any of the other persons belonging to the expedition are now of little interest.

Dr. Mateer came back to the United States only three times on furlough during the more than forty-five years that intervened between his sailing for China in 1863 and his death. The first of these absences from China began in May, 1879, and ended about the first of January, 1881. Under the rule of the Board of Missions he was entitled to a furlough home long before that time, but he felt that he could not sooner leave his work. He also held the opinion that there is usually no sufficient reason to justify this privilege to a young missionary so early as is established custom. His wife, on account of health, had preceded him some six months. He came by way of Japan, and brought with him two Mills children, their mother having died. They crossed the Pacific on a slow vessel, but the voyage was delightful, and in about as great a contrast as is possible with his experience on the ship which originally carried him to China. He was made more than comfortable and the captain went out of his way in order to show him courtesies. On arrival in the United States his time was spent in the main as by other home-coming missionaries,—in family reunions, visiting here and there, preaching to churches, addressing ecclesiastical meetings of various sorts, seeking recruits among theological students, and other engagements,—the total of which so completely fill up the time that little is left for real rest and recuperation. To this customary list he added two other items,—a period spent in attending medical lectures at Philadelphia, and a hasty trip across the Atlantic to England and to Paris.

His second furlough extended from July, 1892, until October, 1893. He went and came by the Pacific route, and was comfortable on these voyages. Julia was with him. During that sojourn in the United States, in addition to the occupations usually engrossing the time of a missionary on furlough, he went to Chautauqua and studied Hebrew in order to fit himself better for revision work. He also made at the World’s Fair at Chicago that exhaustive examination of machinery, and especially of electrical appliances, of which Dr. Corbett, in the quotation previously given, has told us. One of the greatest pleasures that came to him on this leave of absence was the privilege of once more seeing his mother, then advanced in years. In the last of his letters to her that have come down to us he mentions that he and Julia are at the writing just going into the harbor at Chefoo, and he concludes by saying: “We are very glad that we are at the end of our journey, and back again in China. This is where our work lies, and this is where we ought to be.” It was on his arrival at Tengchow that his students gave him that royal welcome already described.

On September 25, 1900, he was married to Miss Ada Haven, who had been for many years a missionary of the American Board at Peking, and as such was recognized as an accomplished Chinese scholar and a successful and highly esteemed teacher in the Bridgman School. Her engagement to Dr. Mateer briefly antedated the siege of Peking, and she was one of the company of foreigners of whose fate the western world waited with bated breath to hear during the midsummer of 1900. In her book, “Siege Days,” she has given an inside view of the experiences of herself and of many others, and as such it has not only a passing but also a permanent interest and value as a record of that remarkable episode of madness on the part of the “old” China. After the relief of the city and a little season of recuperation from the strain of the siege, Miss Haven came down to Chefoo, and the marriage took place in the Presbyterian church at Chefoo, Dr. Mateer’s old friend, Dr. Corbett, performing the ceremony. As his wife, Ada rendered him valuable assistance, by taking part in the preparation of the smaller book of “Mandarin Lessons.” She also greatly helped the committee on the Mandarin version of the New Testament by making a Greek and English concordance of their first revision. For eight years they two walked together; and he had from her in his literary labors, as well as in other ways, an inspiration and often a direct help of which the world outside of their home can know very little.

His last furlough extended from June, 1902, to August, 1903. Dr. and Mrs. Mateer came to the United States by way of the Siberian railroad and the Atlantic, so that when he arrived in China on his return he had a second time gone around the world. In a letter written to me in April, 1908, he says, “We went home seven years ago by the Siberian railroad, and it was exceedingly comfortable,—much more so than traveling in an ordinary Pullman car.” Perhaps in the interval that had elapsed the recollection of the discomforts that attended the first stage of that journey had somewhat faded from his memory; or he may have had in mind only the part that lay through Siberia proper and in European Russia. A Chinese naval officer who had often come to his study to talk over various matters had expressed a desire to take him and his wife over to Port Arthur in a gunboat when they started on their homeward route. The officer intended by this only one of those empty compliments which Orientals are accustomed to pay, without any thought that the offer involved would be accepted. Dr. Mateer was himself the soul of truth and honor, and, being such, took what this officer said to him at its face value. So, in this case, he sent word of acceptance of the offer, but an answer came back that “after all, it would be inconvenient to take them just then, and that orders had been left with a Chinese junk to take them.” The junk could not come in to shore and they had to go out in a rowboat. When they went aboard, they found that there was no cabin,—nothing, indeed, at their command but a little hold about breast-high, stowed full of Chinese baggage, some of it consisting of malodorous fish and onions. In order to make room for them, the onions were piled in stacks just above on the deck; but even this change left for human occupation merely about a cube of five feet. The boat was crowded with Chinese passengers, and it poured down rain, from which the Mateers could protect themselves only by hoisting an umbrella over the hatchway which was at the same time their only source of ventilation. It was not until the third day that they reached Port Arthur.

It was characteristic of Dr. Mateer that under these conditions he spent every moment of daylight in putting final touches on the manuscripts of the “Technical Terms” and of the “Chemical Terms,” so that these might be mailed immediately to the printer. They came very near missing the train, and if this had happened they would have been compelled to wait a week for another opportunity. The railroad had but recently been completed at that end, and no regular schedule as to service had yet been established; but with many delays and with various inconveniences, after a week, they reached the point at which they overtook an express train bound for Irkutsk. This was luxury indeed, compared with the beginning of the journey. From Irkutsk onward the commendatory language of Dr. Mateer was justified by the accommodations. The Mateers visited Moscow and St. Petersburg; then came on to Berlin, and thence, successively, to Düsseldorf, Cologne, Paris, and London, the latter place brilliant with preparations for the belated coronation of King Edward, which took place while they were there. From Liverpool they crossed the Atlantic to Halifax, and then entered on their American vacation.