Calvin Wilson Mateer, forty-five years a missionary in Shantung, China : $b a biography — John Shaqi
Calvin Wilson Mateer, forty-five years a missionary in Shantung, China : $b a biographyFisher, D. W. (Daniel Webster)
Religion
Calvin Wilson Mateer, forty-five years a missionary in Shantung, China : $b a biography
Fisher, D. W. (Daniel Webster)
Mateer, C. W. (Calvin Wilson), 1836-1908; Missionaries -- China -- Biography
This is not very distressingly Wertherian, and surely ought not, ever
after, to be laid up against the young man, the fountain of whose
thoughts may at that season have been unsealed by love.
But we sadly miss the truth if we infer that, because he was so
matter-of-fact in his conduct, he was without tenderness of heart or
depth of feeling. Dr. Goodrich in his memorial article in the “Chinese
Recorder” of January, 1909, says of him:
I do not remember to have heard him preach, in English or
Chinese, when his voice did not somewhere tremble and break,
requiring a few moments for the strong man to conquer his
emotion and proceed. His tenderness was often shown in quiet
ways to the poor and unfortunate, and he frequently wept when
some narrative full of pathos and tears was read. The second
winter after the Boxer year the college students learned to
sing the simple but beautiful hymn he had just translated,
“Some one will enter the Pearly Gate.” One morning we sang the
hymn at prayers. Just as we were ending, I looked around to see
if he were pleased with their singing. The tears were streaming
down his face.
This sympathetic tenderness was as much a part of his nature as
was his rugged strength.... He dearly loved little children,
and easily won their affection. Wee babies would stretch out
their tiny arms to him, and fearlessly pull his beard, to his
great delight.
His students both feared him and loved him, and they loved him
more than they feared him; for, while he was the terror of
wrongdoers and idlers, he was yet their Great-heart, ready to
forgive and quick to help. How often have we seen Dr. Mateer’s
students in his study, pouring out their hearts to him and
receiving loving counsel and a father’s blessing! He loved his
students, and followed them constantly as they went out into
their life work.
A lady who was present tells that when the first of his “boys” were
ordained to the ministry he was so overcome that the tears coursed down
his cheeks while he charged them to be faithful to their vows.
His mother’s love he repaid with a filial love that must have been to her
a source of measureless satisfaction. Julia could not reasonably have
craved any larger measure of affection than she received from him as her
husband; and later, Ada entered into possession of the same rich gift.
One of the things that touched him most keenly when he went away to China
was his separation from brothers and sisters, toward whom he continued to
stretch out his beneficent hand across the seas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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