This confession is very notable, coming as it does from the pen of him who subsequently, as one of his associates said after his death, “became not only the prince of Mandarin speakers among foreigners in China, but also so grasped the principles of the language as to enable him in future years to issue the most thoroughgoing and complete work on the language, the most generally used text-book for all students of the spoken tongue”; and it may be added, who was selected by the missionaries of all China, in conference, to be chairman of the committee to revise the Mandarin version of the Scriptures, and who in all that work was easily the chief. The diligence with which he improved every spare moment in the study of the language is shown by a letter of Mrs. Julia Mateer, in which she writes of reading aloud to her husband in the evening while he practiced writing Chinese characters. Really he was making better progress than probably he himself imagined. On January 14, 1865, he began to go regularly into the school, to teach the children a phonetic method of writing the Chinese characters. He records that on February 7 he took charge of the morning prayers, and adds: It seemed very strange indeed to me to pray in Chinese, and no less awkward than strange. I found, however, less embarrassment in doing it than I at first supposed. I might easily have begun some time ago, but our school-teacher performs the duty very acceptably, and so I left the matter to him until I was fully prepared. I trust that it will not be long till I will be at home in using Chinese. Tengchow is the seat of one of the competitive literary examinations for students, and at the season when these are held thousands of candidates present themselves. Under date of March 11, of that year, he says: A goodly number of the scholars have come to see me, to get books and to hear “the doctrine.” I have had opportunity to do considerable preaching, which I have not failed to embrace. Some of them understood me quite well. I find a great difference between talking to them and to the illiterate people. They understand me a great deal better. Most of them listen with attention, and some of them with evident interest. They all treated me with respect. I gave them books; they promising to read them, and to come again at the next examination.