“From my youth I had the missionary work before me as a dim vision. A half-formed resolution was all the while in my mind, though I spoke of it to no one. But for this it is questionable whether I would have given up teaching to go to the Seminary. After long consideration and many prayers I offered myself to the Board, and was accepted.”—AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH for college class anniversary, 1897.
In the four sentences at the head of this chapter we have a condensed outline of the process by which Calvin Mateer came to be a foreign missionary. In his case it did not, as in the antecedent experience of most other clergymen who have given themselves to this work, start with an attraction first toward the ministry, and then toward the missionary service; but just the reverse. In order to understand this we need to go back again to “the old home,” and especially to his mother. We are fortunate here in having the veil of the past lifted by Mrs. Kirkwood, as one outside of the family could not do, or, even if he could, would hesitate to do.
Long before her marriage, when indeed but a young girl, Mary Nelson Diven [Calvin’s mother] heard an appeal for the Sandwich Islands made by the elder Dr. Forbes, one of the early missionaries of the American Board, to those islands. He asked for a box of supplies. There was not much missionary interest in the little church of Dillsburg, York County, Pennsylvania, of which she was a member; for the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions had not been organized, and the American Board had not attained its majority. Her pastor sympathized with the newly awakened zeal and interest of his young parishioner, when she proposed to canvass the congregation in response to Dr. Forbes’s appeal. The box was secured and sent. This was the seed that germinated in her heart so early and bore fruit through the whole of her long life.
When in her nineteenth year she was married to John Mateer, hers was a marriage in the Lord; and together she and her husband consecrated their children in their infancy to his service. This consecration was not a form; they were laid upon the altar and never taken back. Through all the self-denying struggles to secure their education, one aim was steadily kept in view, that of fitting them either to carry the gospel to some heathen land, or to do the Lord’s work in their own land.
In addition to the foreign missionary periodicals, a number of biographies of foreign missionaries were secured and were read by all the family. Not only did this mother try to awaken in her children an interest in missions through missionary literature, but she devised means to strengthen and make permanent this interest, to furnish channels through which these feelings and impulses might flow toward practical results. One of these was a missionary mite box which she fashioned with her own hands, away back in the early forties, before the mite boxes had been scattered broadcast in the land. Quaint indeed it was, this plain little wooden box, covered with small-figured wall paper. Placed upon the parlor mantel, it soon became the shrine of the children’s devotion. No labor or self-denial on their part was considered too great to secure pennies for “the missionary box.” Few pennies were spent for self-indulgence after that box was put in place, and overflowing was the delight when some unwonted good fortune made it possible to drop in silver coins—“six-and-a-fourth bits,” or “eleven-penny bits.” Most of the offerings were secured by such self-denials as foregoing coffee, sugar, or butter. There was not at that time much opportunity for country children to earn even pennies. The “red-letter” day of all the year was when the box was opened and the pennies were counted.
This earnest-hearted mother had counted the cost of what she was doing in thus educating her children into the missionary spirit. When her first-born turned his face toward the heathen world, there was no drawing back—freely she gave him to the work. As one after another of her children offered themselves to the Foreign Board, she rejoiced in the honor God had put upon her, never shrinking from the heart strain the separation from her children must bring. She only made them more special objects of prayer, thus transmuting her personal care-taking to faith. She lived to see four of her children in China.
This explains how it came about that this elder son, from youth, had before him the missionary work as “a dim vision,” and that “a half-formed resolution” to take it up was all the while in his mind.
When he graduated from college, he had made no decision as to his life work. During the years preceding he at no time put aside the claims of missions, and consequently of the ministry, upon him, and in various ways he showed his interest in that line of Christian service. As he saw the situation the choice seemed mainly to lie between this on the one hand, and teaching on the other. Before he graduated he had the offer of a place in the corps of instructors for the Lawrenceville (New Jersey) school, since grown into such magnitude and esteem as a boys’ preparatory institution; but the conditions were not such that he felt justified in accepting. Unfortunately, there is a blank in his Journal for the period between March 4, 1857, some six months before he received his diploma at Jefferson, and October 24, 1859, when he had already been a good while in the theological seminary; and to supply it scarcely any of his letters are available. In the autobiographical sketch already noticed he says:
From college I went to take charge of the academy at Beaver, Pennsylvania. I found it run down almost to nothing, so that the first term (half year) it hardly paid me my board. I was on my mettle, however, and determined not to fail. I taught and lectured and advertised, making friends as fast as I could. I found the school with about twenty boys, all day scholars; I left it at the end of the third term with ninety, of whom thirty were boarders. I could easily have gone on and made money, but I felt that I was called to preach the gospel, and so, I sold out my school and went to Allegheny [Western Theological Seminary], entering when the first year was half over.
One of his pupils at Beaver was J. R. Miller, D.D., a distinguished minister of the gospel in Philadelphia; and very widely known especially as the author of solid but popular religious books. Writing of his experience at the Beaver Academy, he says:
When I first entered, the principal was Mr. Mateer. The first night I was there, my room was not ready, and I slept with him in his room. I can never forget the words of encouragement and cheer he spoke that night, to a homesick boy, away for almost the first time from his father and mother.... My contact with him came just at the time when my whole life was in such plastic form that influence of whatever character became permanent. He was an excellent teacher. His personal influence over me was very great. I suppose that when the records are all known, it will be seen that no other man did so much for the shaping of my life as he did.
While at Beaver he at last decided that he was called of God to study for the ministry, but called not by any extraordinary external sign or inward experience. It was a sense of duty that determined him, and although he obeyed willingly, yet it was not without a struggle. He had a consciousness of ability to succeed as a teacher or in other vocations; and he was by no means without ambition to make his mark in the world. Because he was convinced by long and careful and prayerful consideration that he ought to become a minister he put aside all the other pursuits that might have opened to him. Not long after he entered the seminary he wrote to his mother: “You truly characterize the work for which I am now preparing as a great and glorious one. I have long looked forward to it, though scarcely daring to think it my duty to engage in it. After much pondering in my own mind, and prayer for direction I have thought it my duty to preach.”
On account of teaching, as already related, he did not enter the theological seminary until more than a year after I did, so that I was not his classmate there. He came some months late in the school year, and had at first much back work to make up; but he soon showed that he ranked among the very best students. His classmate, Rev. John H. Sherrard, of Pittsburg, writes:
One thing I do well remember about Mateer: his mental superiority impressed everyone, as also his deep spirituality. In some respects, indeed most, he stood head and shoulders above his fellows around him.
Another classmate, Rev. Dr. William Gaston, of Cleveland, says:
We regarded him as one of our most level-headed men; our peer in all points; not good merely in one point, but most thorough in all branches of study. He was cheerful and yet not flippant, and with a tinge of the most serious. He was optimistic, dwelling much on God’s great love.... He was not only a year in advance of most of us in graduating from college, but I think that we, as students, felt that though we were classmates in the seminary, he was in advance of us in other things. Life seemed more serious to him. I doubt if any one of us felt the responsibility of life as much as he did. I doubt if anyone worked as hard as he.
The Western Theological Seminary, during the period of Mateer’s attendance, was at the high-water mark of prosperity. The general catalogue shows an enrollment of sixty-one men in his class; the total in all classes hovered about one hundred and fifty. In the faculty there were only four members, and, estimated by the specializations common in our theological schools to-day, they could not adequately do all their work; and this was the more true of them, because all save one of them eked out his scanty salary by taking charge of a city church. But they did better than might now be thought possible; and especially was this practicable because of the limited curriculum then prescribed, and followed by all students. Dr. David Elliott was still at work, though beyond the age when he was at his best. Samuel J. Wilson was just starting in his brilliant though brief career, and commanded a peculiar attachment from his pupils. Dr. Jacobus was widely known and appreciated for his popular commentaries. However, the member of the faculty who left the deepest impress on Mateer was Dr. William S. Plumer. Nor in this was his case exceptional. We all knew that Dr. Plumer was not in the very first rank of theologians. We often missed in his lectures the marks of very broad and deep scholarship. But as a teacher he nevertheless made upon our minds an impression that was so great and lasting that in all our subsequent lives we have continued to rejoice in having been under his training. Best of all was his general influence on the students. We doubt whether in the theological seminaries of the Presbyterian Church of the United States it has ever been equaled, except by Archibald Alexander of Princeton. The dominant element of that influence was a magnificent personality saturated with the warmest and most tender piety, having its source in love for the living, personal Saviour. For Dr. Plumer, Mateer had then a very high degree of reverent affection, and he never lost it.
Spiritually, the condition of the seminary while Mateer was there was away above the ordinary. In the winter of 1857-58 a great revival had swept over the United States, and across the Atlantic. In no place was it more in evidence than in the theological schools; it quickened immensely the spiritual life of the majority of the students. One of its fruits there was the awakening of a far more intense interest in foreign missions. I can still recall the satisfaction which some of us who in the seminary were turning our faces toward the unevangelized nations had in the information that this strong man who stood in the very first rank as to character and scholarship had decided to offer himself to the Board of Foreign Missions for such service as they might select for him. It was a fitting consummation of his college and seminary life.
Yet it was only slowly, even in the seminary, and after much searching of his own heart and much wrestling in prayer, that he came to this decision. Outside of himself there was a good deal that tended to impel him toward it. The faculty, and especially Dr. Plumer, did all they could wisely to press on the students the call of the unevangelized nations for the gospel. Representatives of this cause—missionaries and secretaries—visited the seminary, where there were, at that time, more than an ordinary number of young men who had caught the missionary spirit. In college, Mateer, without seeking to isolate himself from others, had come into real intimacy with scarcely any of his fellow-students. He says in the autobiographical sketch, “I minded my own business, making comparatively few friends outside of my own class, largely because I was too bashful to push my way.” In the seminary he, while still rather reserved, came nearer to some of his fellow-theologues; and especially to one, Dwight B. Hervey, who shared with him the struggle over duty as to a field of service. They seem to have been much in conference on that subject.
On the 21st of January, 1860, he presented himself before the Presbytery of Ohio, to which the churches of Pittsburg belonged, passed examination in his college studies, and was received under the care of that body; but he had not then made up his mind to be a missionary. On the 12th of April of the same year he went before the Presbytery of Butler, at Butler, Pennsylvania (having at his own request been transferred to the care of that organization, because his parents’ home was now within its bounds), and was licensed to preach. Yet still he had not decided to be a missionary. He was powerfully drawn toward that work, and vacillation at no time in his life was a characteristic; there simply was as yet no need that he should finally make up his mind, and he wished to avoid any premature committal of himself, which later he might regret, or which he might feel bound to recall.
The summer of 1860 he spent in preaching here and there about Pittsburg, several months being given to the Plains and Fairmount churches; followed by a visit home, and another in Illinois.
When the seminary opened in the autumn, he was back in his place. One of the duties which fell to him was to preach a missionary sermon before the Society of Inquiry. He did this so well that the students by vote expressed a desire that the sermon should be published. In his Journal he notes that the preparation of this discourse “strengthened his determination to give himself to this work.” Before the Christmas recess Dr. J. Leighton Wilson, one of the secretaries of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, visited the seminary, and in conference did much to stimulate the missionary spirit. He found in Mateer an eager and responsive listener. On the 12th of December Mateer wrote a long letter to his mother, in which he expresses feeling, because without warrant some one had told her that he had offered himself to the Foreign Board. He says, “I am not going to take such an important step without informing you of it directly and explicitly.” Then he proceeds to tell her just what was his attitude at that time:
I have thought of the missionary work this long time, but not very seriously until within the last couple of years. Ever since I came to the seminary I have had a conviction to some degree that I ought to go as a missionary. That conviction has been constantly growing and deepening, and more especially of late. I have about concluded that so far as I am myself concerned it is my duty to be a missionary. I have thought a great deal on this subject and I think that I have not come to such a conclusion hastily. It has cost me very considerable effort to give up the prospects which I might have had at home. The matter in almost every view you can take of it involves trial and self-denial. I need great grace,—for this I pray. But even if I have prospects of usefulness at home, surely nothing can be lost in this respect by doing what I am convinced is my duty. Indeed, one of the encouraging features, in fact the great encouragement, is a prospect of more extended usefulness than at home. This may seem not to be so at the first view, but a more careful consideration of all the aspects of the case will, I think, bring a different conclusion.
The letter is very full, and lays bare his whole mind and heart as he would be willing to do only to his mother. It is a revelation of this strong, self-reliant, mature but filial-spirited and tenderly thoughtful young Christian man and prospective minister, to a mother whom he recognized as deserving an affectionate consideration such as he owed to no other created being.
On the 7th of January, 1861, he received a letter from his mother, in which she gave her consent that he should be a foreign missionary, naming only one or two conditions which involved no insuperable difficulty. In a student prayer meeting about three weeks later he took occasion in some remarks to tell them that he had decided to offer himself for this work. Still, it was not until the 5th of April, and when within two weeks of graduation, that he, in a full and formal letter, such as is expected and is appropriate, offered himself to the Board. In his Journal of that date, after recording the character of his letter, he says: “This is a solemn and important step which I have now taken. During this week, while writing this letter, I have, I trust, looked again at the whole matter, and asked help and guidance from God. I fully believe it is my duty to go. My greatest fear has been that I was not as willing to go as I should be, but I cast myself on Christ and go forward.” On the 13th of April he received word from the Board that he had been accepted, the time of his going out and his field of labor being yet undetermined.
So the problem of his life work was at length solved, as surely as it could be by human agency. It had been his mother’s wish that he should wait a year before going to his field, and to this he had no serious objection; but as matters turned out, more than two years elapsed before he was able to leave this country. This long delay was caused by the outbreak of the Civil War, and the financial stringency which made it impossible for the Foreign Board to assume any additional obligations. Much of the time the outlook was so dark that he almost abandoned hope of entering on his chosen work, though the thought of this filled his heart with grief. He was intensely loyal to the cause of the Union, and if he had not been a licentiate for the ministry he almost certainly would have enlisted in the army. He records his determination to go if drafted. Once, indeed, during this period of waiting he was a sort of candidate for a chaplaincy to a regiment, which fortunately he did not secure. For several months he preached here and there in the churches of the general region about Pittsburg, and also made a visit to towns in central Ohio, one of these being Delaware, the seat of the Ohio Wesleyan University. Not long afterward he received an urgent request from the Old School Presbyterian Church in that town to come and supply them. About the same time the churches of Fairmount and Plains in Pennsylvania gave him a formal call to become their pastor, but this he declined. He accepted the invitation to Delaware, I suppose partly because it left him free still to go as a missionary whenever the way might open. At Delaware he remained eighteen months, until at last, in the good providence of God, he was ordered “to the front” out in China.
The story of his service of the church in that place need not be told here except in brief. It must, however, be clearly stated that it was in the highest degree creditable to him. In fact, the conditions were such that one may see in it a providential training in the courage and patience and faithfulness which in later years he needed to exercise on the mission field. The church was weak, and was overshadowed somewhat even among the Presbyterian element by a larger and less handicapped New School organization; and was sorely distressed by internal troubles. For a while after Mateer came, it was a question whether it could be resuscitated from its apparently dying stale. At the end of his period of service it was once more alive, comparatively united, and anxious to have him remain as pastor.
On November 12, 1862, while in charge of the church at Delaware, he was ordained to the full work of the ministry, as an evangelist, by the Presbytery of Marion, in session at Delaware.
On December 27, 1862, he was married in Delaware, at the home of her uncle, to Miss Julia A. Brown, of Mt. Gilead, Ohio. Two years before they were already sufficiently well acquainted to interchange friendly letters; later their friendship ripened into mutual love; and now, after an eight months’ engagement, they were united for life. Mateer says in his Journal, “The wedding was very small and quiet; though it was not wanting in merriment,” and naïvely adds, “Found marrying not half so hard as proposing.” Julia, as he ever afterward calls her, was a superbly good wife for him. In her own home, in the schoolroom, in the oversight of the Chinese boys and girls who were their pupils, in the preparation of her “Music Book,” in her labors for the evangelization of the women, in her journeyings,—hindered as she was most of the time by broken health,—she effectively toiled on, until at last, after thirty-five years of missionary service, her husband laid away all of her that was mortal in the little cemetery east of the city of Tengchow, by the side of her sister, Maggie (Mrs. Capp), who had died in the same service, and of other missionary friends who had gone on before her.
When they were married they were still left in great uncertainty as to the time when the Board could send them out, or, indeed, whether the Board could send them out at all. They went on their bridal trip to his parents’ home in western Pennsylvania, reaching there on Wednesday, December 31. Just a week afterward he received a letter from the Board announcing their readiness to send them to China. The record of his Journal deserves to be given here in full.
Scarcely anything in my life ever came so unexpectedly. A peal of thunder in the clear winter sky would not have surprised us more. The letter was handed me in the morning when I came downstairs at grandfather’s. After reading it, I took it upstairs and read it to “my Jewel.” In less than three minutes I think our minds were made up. Her first exclamation after hearing the letter I shall not forget: “Oh, I am glad!” That was the right ring for a missionary: no long-drawn, sorrowful sigh, but the straight-out, noble, self-sacrificing, “Oh, I am glad!” I shall remember that time, that look, that expression. If I did not say, I felt, the same. I think I can truly say I was and am glad. My lifelong aspiration is yet to be realized. I shall yet spend my life and lay my bones in a heathen land. I had fully made up my mind to labor in this country, and most likely for some time in Delaware; but how suddenly everything is changed! The only regret I feel is that I am not five years younger. What a great advantage it would give me in acquiring the language! But so it is, and Providence made it so. I had despaired of going, and despairing I was greatly perplexed to understand the leadings of Providence in directing my mind so strongly to the work, and bringing me so near to the point of going before. Now I understand the matter better. Now I see that my strong persuasion that I would yet go was right. God did not deceive me. He only led me by a way that I knew not. Just when the darkness seemed to be greatest, then the sun shone suddenly out. How strange it all seems! The way was all closed; no funds to send out men to China; and I could not go. Suddenly two missionaries die, and the health of another fails; and the Board feels constrained to send out one man at least, to supply their place; and so the door opens to me. And I will enter it, for Providence has surely opened it. As I have given myself to this work, and hold myself in readiness to go, I will not retrace my steps now. Having put my hand to the plow, I will not look back. I do not wish to. It is true, however, that preaching a year and a half has bound strong cords around me to keep me here. I cannot go so easily now as I might have done when I first left the seminary. It will be a sore trial to tear myself away from the folks at Delaware. They will try hard, I know, to retain me; but I think my mind is set, and I must go. I must go; I am glad to go; I will go. The Lord will provide for Delaware. I commit the work there to his hands. I trust and believe that he will carry it on, and that it will yet appear that my labor there has not been in vain. Yesterday I was twenty-seven years old. I hope to chronicle my next birthday in China. The Lord has spared me twenty-seven years in my native land. Will he give me as many in China! Grant it, O Lord, and strengthen me mightily to spend them all for thee!
This strong, persistent, conscientious, self-controlled, consecrated man had found his life work at last.