The country was massively in debt (its entire customs revenue was in foreign hands), demoralised, disunited and leaderless. Russia, Britain, Japan, France and Germany all claimed large areas as their particular 'spheres of influence', and the central government was a ready-made puppet for whichever group of generals happened to be in the ascendant.

China already contained the seeds of a revolution more fundamental than that of Sun Yat-sen. In the same year as Buchman set out on his second visit there, a student called Mao Tse-tung decided to adopt the ideal of 'the serene and dedicated philosopher-athlete', to talk 'only of large matters' and to rouse his fellow-students to dedicate their lives to the selfless service of the people.22 Mao was not yet a Marxist - his philosophy was still based on a belief in absolute moral principles and the power of the mind - but his disillusionment with the way in which China was being governed was already complete.

To believe, as Buchman did, that the changing of individual lives could transform this highly volatile situation clearly leaves him open to charges of over-simplifying. This, after all, was not Penn State but a nation of countless millions. Buchman, however, saw no essential difference. He had become convinced that, if a few key people gave their lives wholly to Christ, whether at Penn State or in China, anything was possible. 'Who can tell the power of a man won for Jesus Christ?' he asked. 'If the selfish Yuan Shih-k'ai had been won, it might have changed the history of China.' It was the kind of personalisation of a vast problem for which he was often to be criticised: but in view of the influence later exerted by individuals like Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, was he entirely wrong?

A number of prominent Chinese took the same view. Several of the Peking fifteen named in Buchman's plan - the Vice-Minister of Justice and later acting Prime Minister, Hsu Ch'ien, was one of them - passionately believed that Christianity alone could bring the unification of the country and 'national salvation'. So, too, did Mott and Eddy; at least they hoped it might be a fruit of their work. A good many of the missionaries who lived in China, however, felt that it was scarcely their business. To become involved in China's political turmoil, they thought, was both risky and not particularly Christian; and in any event, as in India, a fair proportion were more absorbed by administration than by the conversion of souls. In 1916 Buchman noted unhappily that the net gain in the communicant membership of the Christian churches (26,173) was actually less than the number of salaried missionaries (27,562).

Buchman's emphasis on the importance of a close partnership with educated and sometimes high-ranking Chinese was also untypical of the missionary community. After his own visit to China in 1890, Henry Drummond had complained that the Chinese educated classes were not being reached at all. That was perhaps less true by 1917, but many missionaries were still apt to think of the Chinese as a people to be worked on from a superior level rather than as partners in a common task. Buchman's belief was exactly the opposite. These differing attitudes were to become an increasing cause of disagreement between him and an influential part of the missionary community.

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