Will he give me as many in China! Grant it, O Lord, and strengthen me mightily to spend them all for thee! This strong, persistent, conscientious, self-controlled, consecrated man had found his life work at last. IV GONE TO THE FRONT “If there had been no other way to get back to America, than through such another experience, it is doubtful whether I should ever have seen my native land again.”—AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 1897. The choice of the country to which he should go as a missionary had been with him a subject of earnest consideration and prayer. He says in his Journal, under date of September 12, 1862: The Board wished me to go to Canton, China, at first. This was altogether against my inclinations and previous plans; but the Board would not send me anywhere else, until in the last letter they offered to send me to Japan; I have long had thoughts of northern India or of Africa; and especially have I wished to go to some new mission where the ground is unoccupied, and where I would not be entrammeled by rules and rigid instructions. The languages of eastern Asia are also exceedingly difficult and the missionary work is peculiarly discouraging among that people. Two days later, however, he sent the Board a letter saying that he would go to Japan. When his field finally was specifically designated, it was north China. He was to be stationed at Tengchow, a port that had been opened to foreign commerce in the province of Shantung. The Mateers remained at Delaware until late in April. Until that time he continued in charge of his church. In a touching farewell service they took leave of their people, and traveled by slow stages toward New York. Going to live in China was then so much more serious a matter than it is now that we can scarcely appreciate the leave-takings that fell to the lot of these two young missionaries. The hardest trial of all was to say good-by to mother and to father, and to brothers and sisters, some of whom were yet small children, and for whom he felt that he might do so much if not separated from them by half the distance round the world.