When the summer guests were flown from Tengchow, the missionaries were usually the entire foreign community,—a condition of things bringing both advantages and disadvantages as to their work. On the one hand, the cause which they represented was not prejudiced by the bad lives of certain foreigners coming for commercial or other secular purposes from Christian lands. On the other hand, they were left without things that would have ministered immensely to their convenience and comfort, and which they often sadly needed for their own efficiency, and for their health and even for their lives. This was largely due to the tedious and difficult means of communication with the outside world. For instance, it was six weeks until the goods which the Mateers left behind them at Chefoo were delivered to them at Tengchow. Letters had to be carried back and forth between Tengchow and Chefoo, the distributing point, by means of a private courier. When, by and by, the entire band joined together and hired a carrier to bring the mail once a week, this seemed a tremendous advance. The cost of a letter to the United States was forty-five cents. But the most serious of all their wants was competent medical attention. How Mateer wrote home, and begged and planned, and sometimes almost scolded, about sending a physician to reinforce their ranks! In the meantime they used domestic remedies for their own sick, or sent them overland to Chefoo, or in case of dire necessity brought up a physician from that city. Mateer soon found himself compelled to attempt what he could medically and surgically for himself and wife, and also for others, and among these the poor native sufferers. One of his early cases was a terribly burnt child whom he succeeded in curing; and another was a sufferer from lockjaw, who died in spite of all he could do; and still another case was of a woman with a broken leg. He tried his hand at pulling a tooth for his associate, Mr. Mills, but he had to abandon the effort, laying the blame on the miserable forceps with which he had to operate. Later he could have done a better job, for he provided himself with a complete set of dental tools, not only for pulling teeth and for filling them, but also for making artificial sets. All of these he often used. On his first furlough he attended medical lectures at Philadelphia and did a good deal of dissection. A closet in the new house held a stock of medicines, and by administering them he relieved much suffering, and saved many lives, especially in epidemics of cholera. The physicians who, in response to the appeals of the missionaries, were first sent to the station at Tengchow did not remain long; and for many years the most of the medicine administered came out of the same dark closet under the stairs of “the New Home.” VI HIS INNER LIFE