But before we proceed further it appears desirable to seek an acquaintance with his inner life. By this I do not mean his native abilities, or his outward characteristics as these were known and read by all men who came much into contact with him. It is from the soul life, and especially the religious side of it, that it seems desirable to lift the veil a little. This in the case of anyone is a delicate task, and ought to be performed with a good deal of reserve. In the instance now in hand there is special difficulty. Mateer never, either in speech or in writing, was accustomed to tell others much about his own inward experiences. For a time in his letters and in his Journal he occasionally breaks over this reticence a little; but on November 27, 1876, he made the last entry in the Journal; and long before this he had become so much occupied with his work that he records very little concerning his soul life. Still less had he to say on that subject in his letters; and as years went by, his occupations compelled him to cut off as much correspondence as practicable, and to fill such as he continued with other matters. Nothing like completeness consequently is here undertaken or is possible. A notion that is current, especially among “men of the world,” is that a missionary is almost always a sentimental dreamer who ignores the stern realities of life. It has been my work to train a good many of those who have given themselves to this form of Christian service, and to have a close acquaintance with a good many more; and I cannot now recall one of whom such a characteristic could be honestly affirmed. I have in mind a number of whom almost the opposite is true. Certainly if to carry the gospel into the dark places of the earth with the conviction of its ultimate triumph is to be called dreaming, then every genuine missionary is a sentimentalist and a dreamer; and Mateer was one of them. But in meeting the experiences of life and in doing his work, he was about as far removed from just accusation of this sort as anyone could be. Indeed, he was such a matter-of-fact man that his best friends often wished that he were less so. I have carefully gone over many thousands of pages of his Journal and of his letters and papers, and I recall only one short paragraph that savors of sentimentality. It is so exceptional that it shall have a place here. In a letter written to a friend (Julia, I suspect), in the spring of 1861, he says: I have lived in the country nearly all my life, and I much prefer its quiet beauty. I love to wander at this season over the green fields, and listen to the winds roaring through the young leaves, and to sit down in the young sunshine of spring under the lee of some sheltering bank or moss-covered rock. I love to think of the past and the future, and, thus meditating, to gather up courage for the stern realities of life.