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.