Buchman's own account of his three months in Australia was characteristically enthusiastic. 'We arrived almost unknown. We began with a student at Melbourne University. Some twenty men came the first weekend with beliefs ranging from Hellenism to agnosticism, and one Rugger Blue told us he was an orthodox, nominal Anglican who did not believe in God. The Hellenist told us that the three weekends brought him back to a faith in Jesus Christ. . . The changed lives set Melbourne agog . . . We had interviews at all hours.'19

Thirty years later, one of those present, S. Randal Heymanson, by then the representative of the Australian Newspaper Service in Washington, described the scene: 'There must have been about a dozen of us. I remember Bob Fraser, now Director-General of the Independent Television Authority in Britain; "Mac" Ball, now Professor Macmahon Ball, who represented Australia on the Allied Council that governed Japan immediately after the war, and George Paton, now Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne . .. Frank sat in a big arm-chair and the rest of us, preferring the floor, gathered in a semi-circle around him. We were a difficult group, and I blush for our youthful arrogance ... All our criticisms and objections he must have heard and answered a thousand times, but he listened attentively to each of us as we paraded our store of learning and made our clever little points . . . For those who heard and those who would not hear, Frank Buchman had the same infinite kindness and understanding. . . From dawn till past midnight he was at the service of even the least promising, always cheerful, seemingly never discouraged.'20 In introducing a radio talk by Buchman on 10 July, Frank Russell spoke of 'a number of our brightest young university men who have been captured, or at any rate captivated', and described him as 'a buccaneer of souls, making them walk a moral plank'.21

Among others he met was Prime Minister Stanley Bruce. 'I know you are changing lives,' Bruce remarked. 'What baffles me is how!' They also spent two hours with his immediate predecessor, the legendary Labour pioneer 'Billy' Hughes.

In September Day left for America - a business man had cabled, 'Need you for a hundred house-parties' - while Buchman decided to return via Asia and Europe. He went through Siam and Burma back to India, where he stayed for a weekend with Rabindranath Tagore and talked again with Lord Lytton. He wrote to a friend in January, with mixed accuracy of foresight, 'I was with Ghandi (sic) yesterday for two hours. He is no longer a political leader but the sphere of his usefulness will be sainthood, and a compelling one at that.'22 He was unable to accept a subsequent cabled invitation from Gandhi to revisit the Sabarmati Ashram.

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