The next day, however, he fell ill with dysentery and for several days ran a high fever, so the issue of who was supposed to be running the conference was no longer relevant. A few days later, on 31 August, a telegram came to Blackstone from Bishop Roots in Hankow, carrying the code phrase Blackstone had suggested, 'Discontinue work'. A following letter set out his views in more detail.

He wanted, he told Blackstone, to bear witness to the value of the work Buchman had done in China. The life of the Christian community in Hankow had been 'permanently elevated and inspired'. Buchman's work had also 'been of inestimable value to me, and I shall never cease to be grateful to Buchman for it'.

On the other hand, he went on, he shared Blackstone's misgivings. The Kuling conference had done a great deal of good, particularly among those who had not encountered Buchman before, but all the older missionaries were disappointed. He had also observed in Buchman 'a kind of censorious and dictatorial attitude of mind'. One of Buchman's chief limitations was the difficulty he had in working with others, although he did seem to have co-operated 'in the most perfect fashion' with Eddy.

Roots added that he was 'deeply grieved to observe the change in Buchman himself of which you speak. What its cause is I am not wise enough to judge,' but at Kuling they had suffered from the same gloomy atmosphere to which Blackstone referred at Peitaiho. 'I am afraid, to speak with great frankness,' he concluded, 'that Buchman is in danger of a serious breakdown if he continues longer in China at the present time.' Buchman's work in China thus far had been 'a glorious success', but it ought in his view to be discontinued.10

It must have been a shattering blow for Buchman to be asked to leave China after fifteen months' passionate campaigning. Yet, whatever it was which had made Bishop Roots believe he might be in danger of a breakdown seems to have evaporated very rapidly. He and two friends, his secretary, Hugh McKay,* and Sherwood Day, had planned to take a month's complete rest and recreation after Peitaiho at Port Arthur, across the Gulf of Chihli, and since they now had two days to spare, they took the chance to visit en route the Great Wall of China and the Ming tombs. Within days Buchman was sending cheerful letters home, and on 12 September he wrote Blackstone to say that he had just been for a ten-mile walk and 'topped it off with a good sauerkraut supper'. He asked Blackstone, in passing, to deny the false rumour that he had 'physically gone to pieces' and had been sent back to America.11 Blackstone replied warmly, but did not mention his part in getting Bishop Roots to take the action he had.12

(* The grandson of Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission.)

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