Tengchow is one of the cities officially opened as a port for foreign commerce, under the treaty of Tientsin, which went into actual effect in 1860. Although a place of seventy thousand or more inhabitants, and cleaner and more healthful than most Chinese towns, it has not attracted people from western nations, except a little band of missionaries. The harbor does not afford good anchorage; so it has not been favorable to foreign commerce.

When the Mateers came to Tengchow, missionary operations had already been begun both by the Southern Baptists and the American Presbyterians, though in a very small way. In fact, throughout the whole of China,—according to the best statistics available,—there were then on that immense field only something more than a hundred ordained Protestant missionaries, and as many female missionaries. There were also a few physicians and printers. The number of native preachers was about two hundred and fifty, and of colporteurs about the same. Few of these colporteurs and native preachers were full ministers of the gospel. There were sixteen stations, and perhaps a hundred out-stations. The Chinese converts aggregated thirty-five hundred.

In all Shantung, with its many millions of people, the only places at which any attempt had been made to establish stations were Chefoo and Tengchow, both on the seacoast. The Baptists reached the latter of these cities in the autumn of 1860. They were followed very soon afterward by Messrs. Danforth and Gayley and their wives, of the Presbyterian Board; and the next summer Mr. and Mrs. Nevius came up from Ningpo and joined them.

The natives seemed to be less positively unfriendly than those of many other parts of China are even to this day; yet it was only with protracted and perplexing difficulties that houses in which to live could be obtained. Not long after this was accomplished, Mrs. Danforth sickened and died, and was laid in the first Christian grave at Tengchow. Then came a “rebel,” or rather a robber invasion, that carried desolation and death far and wide in that part of Shantung, and up to the very walls of Tengchow, and left the city and country in a deplorable condition of poverty and wretchedness. Two of the Baptist missionaries went out to parley with these marauders, and were cut to pieces. Next ensued a period during which rumors were rife among the people that the missionaries, by putting medicine in the wells, and by other means, practiced witchcraft; and this kept away many who otherwise might have ventured to hear the gospel, and came near to producing serious danger. After this followed a severe epidemic of cholera, filling the houses and the streets with funerals and with mourning. For a while the missionaries escaped, and did what they could for the Chinese patients; but they were soon themselves attacked; and then they had to give their time and strength to ministering to their own sick, and to burying their own dead. Mr. Gayley first, and then his child, died, and a child of one of the Baptist missionaries. Others were stricken but recovered. The epidemic lasted longest among the Chinese, and this afforded the missionaries opportunity to save many lives by prompt application of remedies; and so tended greatly to remove prejudice and to open the way for the gospel. Ten persons were admitted to membership in the church, the first fruits of the harvest which has ever since been gathering. But a sad depletion of the laborers soon afterward followed. Mrs. Gayley was compelled to take her remaining child, and go home; Mr. Danforth’s health became such that he also had to leave; the health of Mrs. Nevius, which had been poor for a long time, had become worse and, the physician having ordered her away, she and her husband went south. This left Rev. Mr. Mills and his wife as the only representatives of the Presbyterian Board, until the Mateers and Corbetts arrived, about three years after the beginning of the station by Danforth and Gayley.

When the Mateers and Corbetts came they were, of necessity, lodged in the quarters already occupied by the Mills family. These consisted of no less than four small one-story stone buildings clustered near together; one used for a kitchen, another for a dining room, a third for a guest room, and the fourth for a parlor and bedroom. Each stood apart from the other, and without covered connection. The larger of them had been a temple dedicated to Kwan Yin, whom foreigners have called the Chinese god of mercy. According to the universal superstition, the air is full of superhuman spirits, in dread of whom the people of China constantly live, and to avert the displeasure of whom most of their religious services are performed. Kwan Yin, however, is an exception in character to the malignancy of these imaginary deities. There is no end to the myths that are current as to this god, and they all are stories of deliverance from trouble and danger. To him the people always turn with their vows and prayers and offerings, in any time of special need. Partly because the women are especially devoted to this cult, and partly because mercy is regarded by the Chinese as a distinctively female trait, the easy-going mythology of the country has allowed Kwan Yin, in later times, to take the form of a woman. When the missionaries came to Tengchow, the priest in charge of this temple was short of funds, and he was easily induced to rent it to them. He left the images of Kwan Yin in the house. Just what to do with them became a practical question; from its solution a boy who lived with the Mateers learned a valuable lesson. When asked whether the idols could do anybody harm, he promptly replied “No”; giving as a reason that the biggest one that used to be in the room where they were then talking was buried outside the gate! At first a wall was built around the other idols, but by and by they were all taken down from their places and disposed of in various ways. Mateer speaks of a mud image of Kwan Yin, about four feet high, and weighing over two hundred pounds, still standing in his garret in 1870.

The coming of these new mission families into the Mills residence crowded it beyond comfort, and beyond convenience for the work that was imperative. The Mateers had the dining room assigned to them as their abode, this being the best that could be offered. Of course, little effective study could under such conditions be put on the language which must be acquired before any direct missionary labor could be performed. Under the loss of time he thus was suffering, Mateer chafed like a caged lion; and so, as soon as possible, he had another room cleared of the goods of Mr. Nevius, which had been stored there until they could be shipped, and then set to work to build a chimney and to put the place in order for his own occupation. Thus he had his first experience of the dilatory and unskillful operations of native mechanics. The dining room was left without a stove, and, on account of the cold, something had to be done to supply the want. In all Tengchow such a thing as a stove could not be purchased; possibly one might have been secured at Chefoo, but most probably none could have been obtained short of Shanghai. The time had already come for Mateer to exercise his mechanical gifts. He says:

This machine subsequently he improved so that a boy could turn out the fuel with great rapidity.

The house, with the best arrangements that could be made, was so overcrowded that relief of some sort was a necessity. The Corbetts, despairing of getting suitable accommodations for themselves, went back to the neighborhood of Chefoo and never returned,—an immense gain for Chefoo, but an equally immense loss for Tengchow. Mills preferred to find a new house for himself and family, and—after the usual delays and difficulties because of the unwillingness of the people and of the officials to allow the hated foreigners to get such a permanent foothold in the place—he at length succeeded. But that was only a remote step toward actual occupation. A Chinese house at its best estate commonly is of one story; and usually has no floor but the ground and no ceiling but the roof, or a flimsy affair made of cornstalks and paper. The windows have a sort of latticework covered with thin paper; and it is necessary to tear down some of the wall, in order to have a sufficient number of them, and to give those which do exist a shape suitable for sash. The doors are low, few in number, rudely made, and in two pieces. A Chinese house may be large enough, but it is usually all in one big room.

It fell to these missionaries to get in order the house which Mills secured; and to do this in the heat of summer, and during a season of almost incessant downpour of rain. They were obliged not merely to supervise most unsatisfactory laborers, but also to do much of the work with their own hands. Eventually Mills fell sick, and Mateer alone was left to complete the job. Yet he records that on the first day of August his associate had gone to his new residence, and he and Julia were happy in the possession of the old temple for their own abode. Unfortunately both of them were taken down with dysentery. Of the day the Mills family left he says in a letter to one of his brothers:

Here they remained three years; and, here, after they had built for themselves a really “new home,” they long continued to carry on their school work.

But experience soon convinced them that a new dwelling house was a necessity. The buildings which they occupied proved to be both unhealthy and unsuitable for the work they were undertaking. The unhealthiness arose partly from the location. The ground in that section of the city is low, and liable to be submerged in the rainy season. A sluggish little stream ran just in front of the place, passing through the wall by a low gate, and if this happened to be closed in a sudden freshet, the water sometimes rose within the houses. There was a floor at least in the main building, but it was laid upon scantlings about four inches thick, these being placed on the ground. The boards were not grooved, and as a consequence while making a tight enough floor in the damp season, in the dry it opened with cracks a quarter to half an inch wide. The walls were of stone, built without lime, and with an excess of mud mortar, and lined on the inside with sun-dried brick. The result of all this was that the dampness extended upward several feet above the floor, and by discoloration showed in the driest season where it had been. The floor could not be raised without necessitating a change in the doors and windows, and it was doubtful whether this could be made with safety to the house. It is no wonder that, under such conditions, Mrs. Mateer began to suffer seriously from the rheumatism that remained with her all the rest of her life. Added to the other discomforts, were the tricks played them by the ceiling. This consisted of cornstalks hung to the roof with strings, and covered on the lower side with paper pasted on. Occasionally a heavy rain brought this ceiling down on the heads of the occupants; and cracks were continually opening, thus rendering it almost impossible to keep warm in cold weather.

An appeal was made to the Board for funds for a new dwelling. Happily the Civil War was about over, and the financial outlook was brightening; so in the course of a few months permission for the new house was granted, and an appropriation was made. The first thing to do was to obtain a suitable piece of ground on which to build. Mateer had in his own mind fixed on a plot adjoining the mission premises, and understood to be purchasable. Such transactions in China seldom move rapidly. He bided his time until the Chinese new year was close at hand, when everybody wants money; then, striking while the iron was hot, he bought the ground.

Long before this consummation he was so confident that he would succeed that, foreseeing that he must be his own architect and superintendent, he wrote home to friends for specific information as to every detail of house-building. Nothing seems to have been overlooked. He even wanted to know just how the masons stand when at certain parts of their work.

Early in February in 1867 he was down at Chefoo purchasing the brick and stone and lime; and so soon as the material was on hand and as the weather permitted, the actual construction was begun. It was an all-summer job, necessitating his subordinating, as far as possible, all other occupations to this. It required a great deal of care and patience to get the foundations put down well, and of a proper shape for the superstructure which was to rest upon them. In his Journal he thus records the subsequent proceedings:

The early part of November, 1867, the Mateers lived “half in the old and half in the new.” On November 21 they finally moved. That was Saturday. In the night there came up a fierce storm of snow and wind. When they awoke on Sabbath morning, the kitchen had been filled with snow through a door that was blown open. The wind still blew so hard that the stove in the kitchen smoked and rendered cooking impossible. The stair door had not yet been hung, and the snow drifted into the hall and almost everywhere in the house. Stoves could not be set up, or anything else done toward putting things in order, until Thursday, when the storm abated.

But they were in their new house. It was only a plain, two-story, brick building, with a roofed veranda to both stories and running across the front, a hall in the middle of the house with a room on either side, and a dining room and kitchen at the rear. Much of the walls is now covered by Virginia creeper, wistaria, and climbing rose. It is one of those cozy missionary dwellings which censorious travelers to foreign lands visit, or look at from the outside; and then, returning to their own land, they tell about them as evidence of the luxury by which these representatives of the Christian churches have surrounded themselves. Yet if they cared to know, and would examine, they would out of simple regard for the truth, if for no other reason, testify to the necessity of such homes for the health and efficiency of the missionaries, and as powerful indirect helps in the work of social betterment among the natives; and they would wonder at the self-sacrifice and economy and scanty means by which these worthy servants of Christ have managed to make for themselves and their successors such comfortable and tasteful places of abode.

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:

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.

In those early days Pei-taiho in the north, and Kuling and Mokansan in the south, had not been opened as summer resorts. Chefoo and Tengchow were the only places available for such a purpose, and there were in neither of them any houses to receive guests, unless the missionaries opened theirs. Tengchow became very popular, on account of the beauty of its situation, the comparative cleanness of the town, and the proximity to a fine bathing beach. As a usual thing, if one mentions Tengchow to any of the old missionaries, the remark is apt promptly to follow: “Delightful place! I spent a summer there once with Dr. Mateer.” Pleasant as he made his own home to his little friends, and to veterans and recruits, he was equally agreeable in the homes of others who could enter into his spheres of thought and activity. He was often a guest in the house of Dr. Fitch and his wife at Shanghai, while putting his books through the press. He was resident for months in the China Inland Mission Sanitarium, and in the Mission Home at Chefoo. Dr. Fitch and his wife, and Superintendent Stooke of the Home, tell with evident delight of his “table talk,” and of other ways by which he won their esteem and affection.

When the summer guests were flown from Tengchow, the missionaries were usually the entire foreign community,—a condition of things bringing both advantages and disadvantages as to their work. On the one hand, the cause which they represented was not prejudiced by the bad lives of certain foreigners coming for commercial or other secular purposes from Christian lands. On the other hand, they were left without things that would have ministered immensely to their convenience and comfort, and which they often sadly needed for their own efficiency, and for their health and even for their lives. This was largely due to the tedious and difficult means of communication with the outside world. For instance, it was six weeks until the goods which the Mateers left behind them at Chefoo were delivered to them at Tengchow. Letters had to be carried back and forth between Tengchow and Chefoo, the distributing point, by means of a private courier. When, by and by, the entire band joined together and hired a carrier to bring the mail once a week, this seemed a tremendous advance. The cost of a letter to the United States was forty-five cents.

But the most serious of all their wants was competent medical attention. How Mateer wrote home, and begged and planned, and sometimes almost scolded, about sending a physician to reinforce their ranks! In the meantime they used domestic remedies for their own sick, or sent them overland to Chefoo, or in case of dire necessity brought up a physician from that city. Mateer soon found himself compelled to attempt what he could medically and surgically for himself and wife, and also for others, and among these the poor native sufferers. One of his early cases was a terribly burnt child whom he succeeded in curing; and another was a sufferer from lockjaw, who died in spite of all he could do; and still another case was of a woman with a broken leg. He tried his hand at pulling a tooth for his associate, Mr. Mills, but he had to abandon the effort, laying the blame on the miserable forceps with which he had to operate. Later he could have done a better job, for he provided himself with a complete set of dental tools, not only for pulling teeth and for filling them, but also for making artificial sets. All of these he often used. On his first furlough he attended medical lectures at Philadelphia and did a good deal of dissection. A closet in the new house held a stock of medicines, and by administering them he relieved much suffering, and saved many lives, especially in epidemics of cholera. The physicians who, in response to the appeals of the missionaries, were first sent to the station at Tengchow did not remain long; and for many years the most of the medicine administered came out of the same dark closet under the stairs of “the New Home.”