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.