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.