As it was, Hsu Ch'ien, Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse-tung, Chou En-lai and others succumbed to the persuasive personality of Borodin.* In their search for the unifying and cleansing principle, which Hsu and others had seen in the revolutionary Christianity offered by Buchman, they turned to Communism. Some later broke with it. Some were confused. Some were captured by it heart and soul.

(* A young American journalist, one of Bishop Roots' sons, then writing for the New York Times in China, knew Borodin well. It was Chiang Kai-shek who introduced them in 1926. 'Borodin spoke of revolution,' he recalled later. 'He had worked his way several times through the New Testament. He said, "That man Paul, there was a revolutionary!" Then he suddenly turned with a distorted face, pounded his fist on the table till the teacups flew on to the floor, looked me in the eye and shouted, "But where do you find men like him today? Give me one example. No, you cannot."' (John M. Roots writing in Morgenbladet (Oslo), 2 January 1962.) Partly as a result of this conversation, John Roots decided to work full-time with Buchman, and was later joined by the Bishop and several others if his family.)

For Buchman himself, the consequences of his Chinese experience were considerable. He had found himself in conflict with a sizeable part of the Christian establishment and had lost, but had learnt a good deal in the process. It was a great surprise to him. 'Simply because I attacked sin in China,' he noted when he arrived home. Of the reaction to his mention of 'absorbing relationships', he added, 'Had no idea such sin existed except in isolated cases. Being misunderstood opened my eyes. There is a clique that is impure.' In passing on Bishop Lewis' warning, he had simply thought that he was offering the assurance of inner freedom and of spiritual effectiveness to Christian workers who would be glad to receive it. In relating the story to Hartford President Douglas Mackenzie, he added, 'I believe that some of the criticism is traceable to the fact that the men felt I knew more than I actually did.'32

As he came back to America, ignorant still of Blackstone's manoeuvring, he felt that wider opposition to him was crystallising and he expected that rumours would have found their way not only to Hartford but to YMCA headquarters in New York. Meantime he wrote to Sherwood Day, 'I am not returning to Hartford tied in any way. I must have liberty of speech and action.'33

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