The Final Race Read online

  [31] Ellen Caughey, Run to Glory: The Story of Eric Liddell (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour, 2017), e-book.

  [32] David McCasland, Eric Liddell: Pure Gold: A New Biography of the Olympic Champion Who Inspired Chariots of Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 2001), 119.

  CHAPTER 9

  A SORT OF HOMECOMING

  Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.

  Mark 5:19

  July 18, 1925

  Fourteen days after leaving London’s Victoria Station, Eric stepped onto the station platform at Pei Tai Ho, the Chinese beach resort he’d not seen or played at for eighteen years. He scanned the small crowd waiting there until he found his father and mother, his sister, Jenny, and his younger brother, Ernest.

  They spotted him as well and, within seconds, had him wrapped in hugs, his mother waiting until the last for her turn at him. He breathed in the oddly familiar scent of her. “Mother,” he whispered as she pressed another kiss against his cheek. “Mother,” he said again.

  “Let’s get your luggage,” his father said, “and be on our way.”

  They looked good, all of them. His parents had aged, of course, but so had he—receding hairline and all. Ernest had grown to a strapping lad of twelve, and Jenny looked as lovely as he had remembered. “Where are Rob and Ria?” Eric asked.

  “They’ll join us next week,” James Liddell said. “That’ll give you five weeks total with the whole family before you get to work.” He beamed at his wife. “Won’t that be something, Mary? Five weeks with all our children?”

  Mary didn’t answer; she only nodded.

  They loaded everything—including themselves—into a donkey-drawn carriage and settled in for the short trip to their summer cottage. They’d hardly pulled away from the station when Ernest begged, “Tell us everything about your trip.”

  Eric threw back his head and laughed. “Which part?”

  “All of it!” Jenny exclaimed.

  “How about the weather?”

  Ernest wrinkled his nose. “Not that.”

  “Partly cloudy. Pouring rain in parts. Sunny in others,” he teased, his eyes taking in the unfamiliar terrain. He’d hoped he could have remembered even a fraction of it. Of being there with Rob. The smells, the sounds . . . anything.

  Jenny punched her brother’s upper arm, bringing him back to the moment. “Anything but that. Did you meet anyone interesting?”

  Eric nodded. Indeed, he had—a Lithuanian who spoke only of the poverty of his country, something Eric had not fully appreciated until their train passed through the country. Then he’d been able to take note of the people—a large number without shoes or decent clothing—and of the houses, most not decent enough for any human and yet inhabited by many.

  He’d also met a Chinese man who sat next to him for a portion of the trip and carried a bundle wrapped in a skin.

  “—and every so often the car would rock hard,” Eric said, “and when it did, a large swarm of flies would rise up and . . .” Eric felt the pain of such poverty in the deepest part of himself and he frowned, aware that his younger sister and brother were looking at him now, waiting. “And then back down again.”

  “It sounds positively awful,” Mary said. “That poor, poor man.”

  “And for you, Eric,” Ernest said, “for having to sit so close.”

  An hour later, Eric stood next to his father on the beach. They’d cuffed their pants to their calves as the water lapped over their bare feet. “I read your report to the LMS while on the train,” Eric said, resting his hands on his hips as he took in the beauty around him. Something familiar caught hold of his memory now, and he breathed it in. “Is it really so grim here now?”

  James’s chin rose a notch, something Eric had almost come to expect from his father, even though he’d so rarely seen him in his life. “Worse,” he said finally. “This country has been brought to a sad condition, Eric. The work of the church has been more difficult than ever.”

  Eric blinked, furrowing his brow. Had he made a mistake by coming now? In Britain, he had the world at his fingertips when it came to his work. But here? No one knew him beyond his being the son of Rev. James Liddell.

  But once Eric made up his mind to do—or not to do—something, little could change it.

  * * *

  IT HAD BEEN DECIDED that upon return to Tientsin at the end of the holiday, Eric would live in the upper room of James and Mary Liddell’s home. At twenty-three, Eric had essentially been on his own for nearly two decades. He was an independent man, a scholar, and for all practical purposes, a world conqueror. And now? Now he lived in his parents’ attic.

  James and Mary, along with Jenny and Ernest, had called No. 6 London Mission in Tientsin home for several years. The comfortable and large brick residence was located within the London Missionary Society compound in the foreign-designated section of the city. The house boasted a tennis court in the front and, from Eric’s vantage point in the attic, a commanding view of the grounds all around.

  The Liddells, like most of the missionaries and Westerners, had various Chinese servants who helped in the house quarters, three of whom lived in the back portion of the house. They were paid a fair wage, but the situation created a noticeable dichotomy within the city.

  Almost 80 percent of the million-strong city were native Chinese, and they lived a rugged lifestyle, working across a wide spectrum of agriculture and domestic labor, particularly in relation to the wealthy foreign class. The Chinese section of the city was much larger but not nearly as upscale as the way the resident aliens—the British, Germans, and French—insisted on living.

  During his first days back home, Eric purchased two large albums and organized the newspaper clippings, photographs, and programs he’d collected over the past few years. He then employed a carpenter to build a small cabinet that would house his medals, nearly two hundred in all. In this way, whenever visitors came to call and inevitably asked to see the medals, Eric could easily display them rather than having to take them out of their individual cases.

  He also spent time familiarizing himself with a new way of life and the political sentiments of the country.

  Tientsin, being a port city, was valuable for international trading partners, similar to Shanghai and Hong Kong. The British influence over the years had thrived in this context. The British ran the taxes, policed the city, and exercised government. They had their own restaurants, a country club, and a racetrack, all with the goal of getting China open to business, work, and trade. The LMS, among various other Christian missionary entities, flourished in the midst of the growing Western influence.

  Consequently, the Chinese resisted the westernization of their country. The wake of the previous generation’s Boxer Rebellion uprising had left an unsettled sensation in the culture. The national pride of the Chinese was at stake, and many felt they were beginning to lose their culture.

  These waves of sentiment crashed over Eric in a direct way. Enrollment in the Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College had dropped significantly, and a storm cloud of concern swelled over the turbulent missionary community, meaning that even though Eric had traveled from Europe to China, leaving behind everything he knew best, he had no guarantees of a position by the end of the year. He very well may have made the long trip to work as a teacher but not have any students to teach.

  Dr. Samuel Lavington Hart, the president of Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College, was eager to connect with Eric. Dr. Hart, a seasoned man, wore a stately goatee, which seemed to punctuate the intensity of his work. He made it clear that he and his wife, Elsie, had tremendous hearts for sharing Christ in an academic setting.

  Eric and Dr. Hart resonated with each other on more than this one level. Dr. Hart believed that Christian education was foundational for all education. Eric appreciated that sentiment. Like Eric, Dr. Hart had abandoned notoriety in Britain when he felt a call to China. A prominent physicist, he had left his influentia
l post in 1892. He and his wife, along with his brother and his brother’s wife, had undertaken the long journey, just as Eric had, each with hope and the belief that they were doing God’s will. But Dr. Hart’s brother and his brother’s new bride both died of dysentery after their first year in China.

  Afterward Dr. Hart and Elsie moved from Wuchang to Tientsin, where he founded TACC with the heartfelt desire to share the gospel with the sons of Chinese businessmen and government officials.

  When Eric questioned whether, come fall, he’d stand before a classroom of empty desks, Dr. Hart assured him “the Authorities of the College have decided to open the college as usual in September. They will admit all, whether former students or new students, whose distinct purpose it is to devote themselves quietly to study.”[33]

  Eric and all the missionary community breathed a sigh of relief that their opportunity continued intact, fragile though it was. Immediately, Eric set up shop, buying lab supplies as best he could find in the local markets. When the school doors opened for his first year as a teacher, Eric joined a faculty of five other British missionary educators, including his old teacher A. P. Cullen.

  And what a reunion! Cullen had enjoyed following Eric’s athletic career and thoroughly endorsed his addition to the college. Cullen’s voice stating, “We are fortunate to have Eric on campus” offered powerful validation.

  But one thing had changed. Eric had always heard his old professor referred to as “Cullen.” Within the extended LMS family, however, children referred to their elders as “Uncle” and “Auntie.” Now, when Eric heard children call out for Cullen, they called him “Uncle Rooper” (based on an old nickname from childhood).

  Eric easily became “Uncle Eric.”

  Eric thrust himself into his work like a champion rejoicing to run his course. He taught science in the morning and also participated in leading the college’s morning services. His afternoons at the school became a laboratory of a different kind when Dr. Hart asked Eric to develop the athletic program. Afternoons were for playing catch-up, for tea, for Chinese classes with his private tutor . . . but Eric’s old habit of saying yes came too easily, even in another country.

  That year Eric organized races, games, and full-fledged track and field meets with his students. And for the students, Uncle Eric’s participation became coveted. After all, how often does one have a chance at competing against a star Olympic gold medalist?

  On the field, Eric could see another side to his students, and they him. He had always appreciated being able to offer Christ in, with, and under scholastic studies. This was no secret. But he preferred a kinetic way to inspire faith in others, and sports set the table perfectly for his appetite as well as that of the students.

  The college flourished, even during extreme adversity.

  By February, Eric had a firm footing in his work and took the time to respond to Miss Hardie and her Sunday school class back in Edinburgh. After referencing all the students by name, Eric delighted them with a unique tale of the circumstances around his work during the holidays:

  Just at Christmas time Tientsin was being attacked and for two weeks we could hear the guns going just about five or ten miles away. Slowly the attackers were winning their way until on the 23rd of December the fighting was going on in a part of the Tientsin city. Then on the 24th Tientsin was taken. It was all quite exciting with the fighting so near. Of course we were all safe as we live in a part that is ruled by the French. . . . I wonder how you would like a battle like that to go on just outside Edinburgh? . . .

  This has just been a very short glimpse of some things here. All the while it changes quickly, later on I may be able to give some idea of Tientsin.

  With all the best of wishes to each one in your class,

  Yours sincerely,

  Eric H. Liddell[34]

  The ensuing year flew by with fierceness. Success had never taken long to blossom for Eric in Britain; China appeared no different. He established himself among the faculty at the college, in the classroom with the students, on the sports field with the greater community, and at Union Church with its members. Eric acted as the superintendent of the Sunday school, taught a class for the boys there, and facilitated Bible studies in some of the area’s Chinese congregations. And as though he had more hours in the day than everyone else, he volunteered as chaplain to British troops rotating through their station in Tientsin port.

  With every focus, Eric aimed for excellence and measured results. This way of life and faith had always worked for him, which was, of course, a hard point for anyone to criticize. Eric steered a ship of legalistic theology, which his family and surrounding institutions bolstered for him. His thinking and his convictions were strict, but not unyielding. He kept this nuanced tension in mind, as he would occasionally catch wind of straying theological tendencies from his Congregational denomination in Scotland. Consequently, Eric felt conflict over the direction the Congregationalists had begun to steer regarding the interpretation of Scripture.

  Eric was a missionary, but not a theologically skilled, church-planting missionary. Church politics had never been a strong interest for Eric, nor had the arguments and divisiveness they created. As he grew deeper spiritually, Eric’s own opinions developed, but he kept them tamed. His primary interest lay in sharing Christ with those who had never heard of him. If there was anything he could do to assist or aid someone in the assurance of their eternal salvation, he helped, and happily so.

  Another LMS teacher joined Eric in early 1926.

  Eric Scarlett and his wife, Dorothy, were initially sent to Tientsin to fill in for a few months at the college. But Scarlett’s vibrant personality made him impossible to release when the time came. Together, the two Erics worked in the science department and developed an exciting course in practical physics.

  That summer, Jenny Liddell announced her engagement to a businessman named Frank Turner, but a few months later she called the engagement off. Again unattached, Jenny often accompanied her equally unattached brother to various social events, sometimes to help ward off Tientsin’s single women who were interested in Eric.

  By late summer 1926, another missionary couple—the MacKenzies, of Canada—returned from furlough along with their children: Florence, Margaret, Norman, Esther, Finlay, Kenneth, and Agnes Louise.

  Like Eric, Florence MacKenzie, who attended the Sunday school class Eric taught, tended to be more athletic than academic, and she was known for her wit and love of life. Without knowing it—and perhaps without Eric meaning for it to happen—the young Florence caught Eric’s eye in a way he had not experienced before, which left Eric with a profound problem.

  Eric was twenty-four years old.

  Florence was only fifteen.

  [33] David McCasland, Eric Liddell: Pure Gold: A New Biography of the Olympic Champion Who Inspired Chariots of Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 2001), 125–26.

  [34] Eric Liddell to Effie Hardie, February 19, 1926, Eric Liddell Centre, accessed September 21, 2017, http://www.ericliddell.org/about-us/eric-liddell/personal-correspondence-of-eric-liddell/.

  CHAPTER 10

  A SLOW BLOOM

  Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

  1 Corinthians 13:4-6

  Autumn 1928

  Eric sat hunched over his classroom desk holding two pages of unfolded stationery—one in his right hand that he’d already read, the nearly read second page in his left.

  The door to his classroom rattled open, and he looked up to see Cullen stroll in. “Thought you’d be gone by now,” he said by way of greeting.

  Eric waved the paper in his right hand. “A letter from Annie,” he said. “I brought it to read during lunch but had other issues to deal with instead.”

  Cullen smiled, his cheeks rising to the round spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose. �
��Ah, Annie.” He slid into one of the front row desks and crossed his legs. “What does our favorite nurse have to say for herself?”

  Like Eric and Cullen, Annie Buchan—Nurse Annie to most—had come to China from Scotland to serve on the mission field. She’d arrived in Pei Tai Ho for a brief vacation shortly after Eric arrived back in China, and then as summer gave way to autumn, she’d left again, having been given a difficult assignment in the Hopei plain. That Christmas she’d endured the holidays among the war-torn mission at Tsangchow, then went on to Nan Yuan. From there, she’d gone wherever God—and country, by way of the mission agency—called her. Through correspondence she’d managed to keep her fellow missionaries up to date on her comings and goings.

  Eric returned to a portion of the first page and read it aloud to Cullen. “‘This past May we were again forced to evacuate from the restored Siaochang station to Tsangchow because the warlord armies there behaved more like ghastly thieves than soldiers. We—my staff and I—climbed into mule carts and prepared prayerfully for the grim and harrowing journey. We found a Methodist mission along the way and took temporary refuge there. For reasons perhaps only God can know, the soldiers robbed the Chinese who passed along the way but left us alone.’”

  Already knowing what came next, Eric blew out a long breath. “Shall I continue?” he asked Cullen.

  “Please.”

  “She writes, ‘We had been told of how soldiers plundered the poor village people, and now we were seeing them at work. They kicked open doors, pushed their swords through them. We heard the cries of the terrified people inside. There was, of course, nothing to plunder from us, but once again we felt ashamed to go free.

  “‘Soon another band of soldiers caught up with us. They blamed us for having a bodyguard and for breaking treaty rights. They made us walk while they took turns riding the carts. Things looked ugly for us. We had no supplies and yet here we were, caring for the war’s victims. One general came along and, feeling sorry for us, sent over some food.’” Eric looked up at Cullen, reading the rest from memory. “‘We heard he was murdered a short while later.’”