Now he wrote from Port Arthur telling his mother that he had cabled Dr Willard Kline, a well-known Allentown specialist, to ask what could be done for his father. He also sent $600 to help pay for a male nurse. 'It is clear', he said, 'that the strain is too great for you, and you ought not to bear it any longer.' In his quiet hours God had given him real assurance 'that He will be a husband to you and that you are safe in His keeping'. He was, he added, starting out with a small party of friends on an evangelistic programme of his own. There had been invitations from both Korea and Japan. 24 'We are going forth on faith and prayer', he wrote to Howard Walter in India, 'with nothing but the Almighty's bank to draw upon. All of us are richer for these days of trial through which we have passed.'25

It seems likely, in view of his letter to Blackstone, that a subsidiary motive in undertaking the tours in Korea and Japan was a desire, conscious or unconscious, to make it quite clear that he had not been 'sent home' from Asia and to re-establish that, unhampered, his message could achieve wide acceptance. He was indeed enthusiastically received in both countries, and through the friendships he then formed laid the foundation for work which came to fruition in later years. In Japan, in addition to his usual work, he became friends with two of the creators of modern Japan, Baron Morimura and Viscount Shibusawa, who chaired a meeting of the Concordia Society at which Buchman gave a talk on 'Human Engineering'.

To Buchman's great sadness, Walter died of influenza in India that November, and there was constant anxiety about his parents; but otherwise these months in Korea and Japan seem to have been both happy and fruitful. Dr Kline's reply to his letter, through one delay and another, did not reach him till 8 February 1919. Thereupon he cancelled various engagements, and in March 1919 sailed for the United States.

He had not, as it turned out, heard the last of some of the leading characters in the drama of his departure from China. Harry Blackstone, it became known, had a weakness for Eurasian secretaries and, when one of them spoke publicly about their relationship in 1924, he was disgraced and left the church to go into business. In his misery, he wrote to Buchman for help.26 'I am so very sorry that all this has happened,' Buchman replied in April 1924. 'You can have anything at my disposal and I shall do all in my power to do what you want me to do. I shall stay straight by you to help, even though you say the sky is black as midnight. .. Do feel free to make any demands upon me and I will do my utmost to fulfil them.'27

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