More and more, however, he became convinced that the old regime was on the way out. 'The old gang - no good,' he noted. 'The East is going to correct the West. Gandhi is on the right track.' Of one of his meetings with Gandhi at this time he used to say in later life, 'Walking with him was like walking with Aristotle.'

In the midst of all this Buchman heard in April that his mother had fallen and broken her hip. He had kept up the flow of letters to her, some starting in Pennsylvania Dutch. His mother had been invited to spend Christmas of 1924 with Mrs Tjader and had greatly enjoyed it. Now Mrs Tjader went to Allentown to be with her as she lay in hospital, and cabled Buchman, 'This week she will either go from us or recover.' Buchman cabled from Madras on 6 May, 'Many loving messages. God assures me all is well. In Jesus' keeping we are safe. No separation. Call in best consultant.' He travelled by night train to a house-party in Kodaikanal. There next day he received the news that his mother had died. Buchman sometimes related that he had been forewarned while travelling. 'At the moment of death, the carriage suddenly seemed lit up, as bright as day.'

In those days it would have been impossible to return for the funeral - which was attended by a thousand people and at which Buchman asked Shoemaker to speak; but on the same day, 12 May, at Kodaikanal, a memorial service was conducted by a clergyman from Calcutta Cathedral.

Buchman wrote, 'The memorial service was attended by Indians and Europeans. A triumphant note pervaded the service. The young Indian who shared my pew had spent two Christmases with our family in America.'14 To Mrs Tjader he wrote, 'As you left home with mother, Sherry and I went down by the lakeside - and such a moon with the Southern Cross. It was wonderful beyond words. There was the lake and the fine lane of spruce and then the mist and the stars. It seemed as if God had planned it all... There has been a nearness and a peace that has been beyond description.''15

Mrs Buchman's influence on Frank Buchman had been profound. Her strong sense of right and wrong, her home-making qualities and down- to-earth common-sense remained with him. He wrote to her once, 'The liberty which I have always enjoyed is one of your strongest traits. It has taught me to think and act for myself.'16 She had tried at first to form his future and, when he was in China, was often clamant that he should return home. He was loving in his letters, but clear that he must not waver from doing what he felt God asked of him, however painful he found it. Then, at a certain point, his mother yielded her attempts at control. This appears to have taken place during his time in China. At any rate, a change there was, and Buchman wrote later in his life, 'Her one wish for me was that I do God's will, and having decided that she backed me, even at difficult times when it meant I could not be near her.'17 In later years, she always rejected the view of those who said her son should stay with her. During her last Christmas, she had said to a friend, 'Christ's work must go on. Yes, I miss Frank, but I would not interfere. He is under a higher authority.' Her last letter to her son, written on the day of her accident, ended, 'Some day we shall meet.'18 It reached him in Australia, two months later.

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