Caux, when the World Mission arrived there, was at full stretch with 931 people from thirty-seven nations attending the assembly at the time. Buchman, who had seen the Mission off from Mackinac Island, had followed their reports with intense interest and moved to Europe to greet them on their arrival at Caux. He had not been surprised at the attempts made to prevent the completion of the task. 'This backwash is to be expected. It is an expression of our materialistic philosophy and we have to accept it. But that is America!' he commented sadly.

Immediately afterwards, in early September, Buchman left for Italy where he spent the autumn, while The Vanishing Island was played first in the main Swiss cities and then, during November and December, in the four Scandinavian capitals. In Helsinki, U Nu, who had just come from Moscow, accompanied President Kekkonen to the show and at the first night in Stockholm, the King, who was present with Prime Minister Erlander, led a standing ovation in the packed Royal Opera House. Then the cast followed Buchman to Italy, giving their first performance there on 27 December in Sesto San Giovanni, a Communist-dominated suburb of Milan. They were accompanied by the African cast of Freedom, and in the front row at their performance sat the Communist mayor and his council.

One unexpected result was that Luigi Rossi, the proprietor of the local Communist paper, apologised to the priest in charge of the Sesto parish, whom he had maligned, and found his way back to his faith.8 Monsignor Montini, who had recently become Archbishop of Milan, had, on arrival, paid special attention to the Communist strongholds in and around the city, and he was kept informed of these developments. On New Year's Day 1956, when he celebrated the solemn mass in Milan Cathedral, Buchman was invited to sit in the choir while his two hundred colleagues were given front row seats in the nave. Montini referred to them in his homily, and received Buchman and a few of his friends in the courtyard of his palace after the ceremony.

Buchman, meanwhile, was about to set out for Australia. He had received an invitation from five Melbourne-based politicians, headed by the Federal Minister of the Interior, Sir Wilfrid Kent-Hughes, whom he had last met in 1921 in Loudon Hamilton's rooms in Oxford. He took with him some thirty people, including Hamilton; George West, who had been Bishop of Rangoon; Colonel Malise Hore-Ruthven, brother of the previous Governor-General of Australia, and his family; Bunny and Phyllis Austin; the three Colwell Brothers from America with their western songs; Paul Campbell, Jim Baynard-Smith, and Prince Richard of Hesse, whom he had invited to go with him to Australia thirty years before, but who had then been unable, or unwilling, to go.

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