projected stay, and took for this purpose a house occupied usually as headquarters for the school for the deaf, Mrs. Goodrich, because of the condition of Mrs. Mateer’s health, having charge of the housekeeping. The meetings were held in a little chapel of the China Inland Mission, in the neighboring valley. It was while so situated that Dr. Mateer was stricken with his fatal illness. In a letter which he addressed “To the dear ones at home,” on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, he said: God has also blessed me in enabling me to accomplish several of the leading purposes of my life. From my boyhood I longed for a liberal education. My next great desire was to give at least forty years to work in China. Soon after I came to China I began educational work on a very small scale, but aspired to raise up a college that might be a power for good. I early formed the purpose of becoming an adept in the spoken language, and in aiming at this saw the need of a text-book for learning the language, and set about making it. All these purposes I have been enabled, by the blessing of God, to accomplish. My great work for the last ten years has been to lead in the translation of the Bible into Mandarin. This has been a most trying and laborious task, which is not yet completed. The New Testament is nearly done, but whether the Old Testament will be completed, who can tell? My desire and hope is to complete it. To prepare a mature and approved translation of the Bible for the use of two hundred and eighty millions of people will be for the glory of God in China. XIV INCIDENTS BY THE WAY “There are many trials and self-denials in missionary life, but there are also not a few compensations and some advantages.”—LETTER “TO THE DEAR ONES AT HOME,” at his seventieth birthday. The statement just quoted is general, and admits of application in the case of every faithful foreign missionary; but Dr. Mateer meant it especially as an expression of his own experience. In the story of his life work as already here told we have seen it constantly exemplified. There, however, still remain other instances that deserve permanent record. In speaking of them as “incidents by the way,” and in gathering them into a single chapter, I do not mean to indicate that they are unimportant. Some of them concerned the depths of his life. But his work after he reached China was chiefly along the lines that have been traced in the preceding chapters, and those matters now to be related, however important, were incidents by the way.