Western Canada gave the party a big public welcome. '30,000 Flock to Hear Oxford Group' was the headline in the Vancouver News.7 James Butterfield, a columnist in the rival Vancouver Daily Province, took a sceptical view. For four days he attacked.8 On the fifth, Buchman spied him at a reception. 'Hello, Butterfield,' he said, 'you're the fellow who has spelt my name right all week.' That started a talk. Next day, Butterfield's column was headed, 'Dr Buchman, You Win!'

In Edmonton, the Premier of Alberta, who had offered to preside at the first meeting, found himself also speaking to three overflow meetings, all packed to the doors. He said the crowds had the sniff of an election meeting but surpassed any election interest he had known.

When Buchman and Hicks got back to their hotel one night, they found a distinguished-looking older man, in full evening dress and a bit drunk, lying on Buchman's bed. Buchman sent Hicks down to ask the manager how he had got in. When Hicks returned, he heard the visitor saying, 'Now, Dr Buchman, please tell me again - what are those four standards?' Buchman told him. 'I sometimes forget by morning what I heard the night before. Please write them on my shirt front,' the man replied. So Buchman wrote on his shirt front: 'Absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. Tea with Buchman, 5 o'clock.' He came, decided to change, and was a transformed person.

The final all-Canadian gathering at the Chateau Frontenac Hotel in Quebec ended on Whit Sunday, and to the astonishment of the hotel staff Buchman asked one Sully Wood, a highly successful car salesman, to read the Whitsun story from the Acts of the Apostles. Wood had stayed at the hotel twenty-seven times, and never remembered how he had left. The manager could never let the rooms to either side of his because of the racket he made. When Sully arrived this time he said, 'This is the wrong place for you, Sully. A lot of religious people have come.' 'I've come with them,' Sully replied. 'Something may happen.'

The manager was sceptical, and the bell-hops had a sweepstake on how long he would stay sober. One night, finding him roaming the kitchen, they thought they had caught him. But he was only after milk. The 'something' happened. Soon his estranged family joined him, and they were reunited. Six weeks later, while a hundred other Canadians sailed to England for the Oxford house-party, Sully led a team from Toronto to some of the neighbouring cities.

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