Mathews left for China on 4 October 1908, stopping at the CIM headquarters in Shanghai for a short period before being despatched to Henan. In 1915 he was transferred to Huizhou (now a district of Huangshan), Anhui, where he is said to have found, as in Henan, a peculiar lack of response to the Gospel message. Nevertheless, during his time in Anhui, Mathews' interest in the Chinese language deepened due to the variety of dialects he encountered.