The Final Race

by Eric T. Eichinger

  Stuart’s motto had always been “Whatever you undertake, put your very best into it.” Their tweed mill became a continued success in the face of adversity, when many other businesses were closing around them. In the process, their home became a welcoming base for the Christian lay movement.[51]

  For Eric, the Sandersons seemed also to possess a deeper, oracular knowledge that interested him. During Eric’s stay at the mill house cottage, life and theology were discussed with a passion. Somewhere midconversation, Stuart addressed something he felt Eric had hidden in his life. Eric quickly denied it, but inside he was bothered.

  Bothered because he had lied.

  He concluded his pleasant visit with the couple and went on his way.

  Eric returned to Edinburgh a different man. He was both relieved and agitated by his conversation with the Sandersons. Sunday arrived, and Eric could not bear it anymore. He knew he had lied. And he knew he had sinned not just once, but twice. Worse, God knew it.

  The first lie had been the issue Sanderson had stumbled upon, and the second was his own covering of it. Even though they were simple enough crimes to have hidden away in his heart, and which he had already gotten away with, Eric could not forget.

  For he knew God could not forget.

  Bothered beyond reason, Eric did something he had seldom done before—he disturbed someone else’s Sabbath. He picked up the phone and called the Sandersons. Stuart did not receive the interruption with the same hospitality he might have offered any other day or hour of the week. Still, he told Eric to drive out to him later that afternoon.

  Private confession and absolution was a familiar practice for Eric. However, naming the sin out loud, upon other human ears, was an ominous sensation no one looks forward to. Eric told Stuart, “I lied to you before.” Eric apologized during the awkward chat and was comforted to hear forgiveness spoken to him.

  Only God, Eric, and Stuart knew the specifics of Eric’s sin—as should be the case. A guessing man might suspect the issue Stuart kicked up had something to do with the inner workings of Eric’s private life, a fear only the pressures of fame can produce, which if discovered, would potentially tarnish his reputation. Regardless, with his slate clean, Eric felt like a new man. To hear audible grace spoken back after a confession of wrongdoing is a sensation unable to be simulated.

  Now Eric had a stronger desire than ever to be associated with the Oxford Group. At a house party gathering in St. Andrews, he shared, “The Group has challenged me to a keener life for Christianity, I know I am going back to China leading a fuller Christian life than when I first went out. It has brought to me personally a greater power in my own life, discipline without the thoughts of discipline, and a greater willingness to share the deepest things in my life. In my time in this country I have met no body of people who are so vitally active and through whom the Spirit of God works so closely as the Oxford Group.”[52]

  These changes for Eric would serve him well in the hard days to come.

  [46] D. P. Thomson, Scotland’s Greatest Athlete: The Eric Liddell Story (Barnoak, Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland: Research Unit, 1970), 121.

  [47] Ibid.

  [48] David McCasland, Eric Liddell: Pure Gold: A New Biography of the Olympic Champion Who Inspired Chariots of Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 2001), 163.

  [49] Ibid., 164.

  [50] “Stuart Sanderson (1887–1971),” Initiatives of Change, January 14, 2014, http://uk.iofc.org/stuart-sanderson-1887-1971.

  [51] Ibid.

  [52] D. P. Thomson, Scotland’s Greatest Athlete: The Eric Liddell Story (Barnoak, Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland: Research Unit, 1970), 126.

  CHAPTER 14

  PATIENCE AND TACT

  We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

  Romans 5:3-5

  June 22, 1932

  The morning arrived with private pomp and cloistered circumstance. Ordination day vacillated between endings and beginnings as Eric sat in an isolated chair at the front of the sanctuary in the Scottish Congregational College chapel—the chair designated for the ordination candidate.

  Eric pressed his lips together, staring out at those who sat before him. His parents—both beaming—his younger brother, his sister and her new family, and a few other family members. He smiled toward them. His mother smiled back; his father nodded.

  Principal Hughes walked forward, bid Eric to rise, and began the litany of questions Eric had been prepared to expect.

  “Do you believe in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and do you boldly declare Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the church?”

  “Yes,” Eric answered.

  “Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the Word of God, and, inspired by the Holy Spirit, the unique witness to Jesus Christ and the authority for Christian faith and life?”

  Again, Eric replied, “Yes.” Because he did.

  “Will you be a faithful minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ by proclaiming the Good News, teaching the faith, showing the people God’s mission, and caring for the people?”

  “I will, with the help of God,” Eric confirmed.

  Once the examination questions were answered, D. P. Thomson invited Eric to kneel. A warmth ran through him as D. P. placed his hand upon Eric’s head and offered up a prayer of blessing. Tears welled in his eyes. Oh, how God had blessed him with D. P.’s friendship. With his encouragement. With his example and love.

  The prayer over, D. P. changed guard with Professor Russell Scott, who proclaimed the gospel charge, his eyes never leaving Eric’s. “Go, therefore, and be a shepherd of the Good Shepherd’s flock; administer the holy sacraments; offer prayer for all God’s people; instruct, watch over, and guide the flock over which the Holy Spirit has placed you. Do it not for earthly gain but with great joy, for you have been called not to lordship but to serve his flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory.”

  Scott bowed his head, and Eric did likewise. A slow breath eased from him as the professor prayed, “Merciful God and Father, you have graciously promised that through the preaching of the crucified Christ those who believe in him will be saved. Guide and bless your servant, Eric Henry Liddell, sent forth to witness in China. Graciously look with favor upon him for the sake of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Grant him confidence and great boldness; uphold and sustain him in hardship, and grant him faithfulness in all his labors that through the speaking of your Word, the nations may come to worship before your throne in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”

  Eric stood, and Russell extended his hand. “Rev. Liddell,” he said, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  Eric’s heart swelled. He was no longer Mr. Liddell. He was now Rev. Liddell, like his father before him. And as his father had been, Eric felt more confident than ever in the call to continue in service to the people in Tientsin, China.

  Soon enough, he stood at Waverley Station, preparing to say good-bye—yet again—to his family. His mother waited, wanting to be the last one to hug her son before he boarded.

  “Out in China,” she spoke against his temple, “we dreaded the long good-byes.” She leaned back, placing the palms of her hands on both sides of his face. “So as not to cry, we made them joyful.”

  Eric’s heart was heavy. He would not see this face again for another seven years. She would miss his wedding to Flo . . . the birth of their children . . . and he would miss her. “How’s that, Mother?” he asked past the knot forming in his throat.

  “We always said, ‘Those who love God never meet for the last time.’ That made it a meeting, not a parting.”

 
; Eric slipped from her embrace. “I love you.”

  “And I love you, Rev. Liddell.”

  * * *

  “REVEREND” DENOTES AN ACADEMIC DEGREE. “Pastor” designates a calling to a specific group of people in the body of Christ. Eric knew the subtle distinction—while the seminary forms the theologian, the people whom the theologian serves form the pastor.

  Rev. Eric Liddell looked forward with vested enthusiasm.

  Eric’s time in Scotland had been the most special of seasons. But the time had come to leave . . . again. He boarded the SS Duchess of York and steamed toward Canada.

  And Florence.

  By now, Florence had moved in with her friend Betty Thomson and her family. When Eric arrived in Canada two weeks after sailing from Liverpool, he went directly to the Thomsons’ home. His excitement at seeing his fiancée again fell flat when he discovered that Flo was at the hospital finishing her shift. While waiting, Eric sat on the outer porch banister and kept polite chatter going with Mrs. Thomson and Betty. But his keen eye was focused down the road, looking for the young woman he hoped would round the corner at any moment.

  When she did, midsentence and without apology, Eric hopped over the porch railing and sprinted down the road. Seeing him, Florence ran as well. They embraced, their faces buried in the curve of the other’s neck, and remained that way for a long time.

  Betty watched with amusement, then said to her mother, “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen two people more in love.”

  As before, the month Eric and Florence spent together went by too quickly. Soon enough—too soon—Eric boarded a train leading him away from Toronto, heading toward Vancouver. From Vancouver he would head back to China: to Tientsin and his students, to his friends . . . and to Flo’s family, who had become much like his own.

  He could now count the days until Florence became his wife with renewed energy, feeling certain that the pure joy pulsing through his veins would get him through another year and a half until they could marry in China.

  As wonderful as it was to be back—and as quickly as Eric managed to fill up his time—he had to reconcile the fact that none of his closest loved ones were nearby. The joys of spending time with Florence in Canada and his family and friends in Scotland were a memory met by a fresh loneliness. His colleague and friend A. P. Cullen, as well as the entire MacKenzie clan, soon left China for their furloughs, which meant that those who would have helped push away the hollowness until Florence’s return were now also absent.

  The normally five-man-staffed college of British missionaries had dropped to three. Even after such a long stretch of time, a replacement for Professor Scarlett had yet to be found. Combined with Cullen’s absence, extra pressure fell on the remaining members Eric Liddell, Carl Longman, and Gerald Luxon.

  In addition to Eric’s regular teaching duties, he took on Cullen’s previous role as secretary of the college, and, as the man who had developed the Min Yuan Sports Field, he was promptly named chairman of the games committee. Additionally, the newly ordained Rev. Liddell added regular preaching assignments at Union Church to his schedule. There he was consulted with anything regarding religious supervision and found himself still functioning as acting superintendent of the Sunday school.

  As if all this were not enough to occupy his time, he began a column for the London Missionary Society Magazine. He wrote articles describing life in China, the Chinese people, and the relationship between those who served and those being served.

  Eric loved teaching Sunday school and particularly lessons from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. He had studied it so much that he put together a small booklet on the subject to aid the other teachers and students. Each Sunday in his class, Eric routinely dropped theological morsels to feast on, and many of these spiritually savory bits were extracted from the Gospel of Matthew—his favorite book.

  Years later, Rev. T. T. Faichney, who pastored Union Church, recalled that Eric once defined the Kingdom of God in an extremely simple and satisfying way. “The Kingdom is where the king reigns,” Eric had said. “If he is reigning in my heart, then the Kingdom of Heaven has come to me.”[53]

  Eric taught that it would be incorrect to think of the Kingdom as a fine pearl that a person should sell all he has to obtain. Instead, he instructed, we should see the merchant (Christ/the King) selling all he has (his life via crucifixion) to obtain the fine pearl (the hearer of the message). In this way, Eric stressed how the King reigns graciously over humanity.

  Eric also designed an extracurricular daily Scripture reading card for his Chinese students, produced with the same overarching goal he set for himself—to designate daily quiet prayer time each morning and to seek the message the Bible had for them in their own lives.

  Eric noted that the times and the culture continued to drift no matter where he was in the world or in which capacity he served. The trend had become evident in the culture of Eric’s British homeland and in his own Congregational Church theology. It had also frustratingly revealed itself in the behavior of his Chinese students—a particularly unruly class, which Eric wrote about in a ministry report:

  The class has not been an easy one and it has driven me to a deeper life of prayer myself. There was one boy who was especially irritating so I put him down for special prayer. . . . This year he has been much better and for a time joined the Bible class, but there’s a long way to go with him yet.[54]

  In the time that waxed and waned between hard work and waiting patiently for “Flossie” (as Eric now called Florence) to complete her nursing studies and return to China, Eric strived to go deeper into his relationship with Christ. He did his best to be mindful of others’ salvation as well and could not help but share the gospel with them when opportune. If those chances did not arrive, he frequently prayed for those in his immediate context. A unique chance presented itself in another way that stretched Eric even further, both physically and spiritually. Ku Lou Hsi Church, a Chinese congregation near Drum Tower in the old city section of Tientsin, had been without a pastor for a while. They created an opening for Eric that required him to come in weekly and meet with a group of their men. Eric’s issues with the Chinese language made themselves known again, but he had grown accustomed to allowing Christ to lead him down new avenues—especially when he felt ill equipped.

  Eric continued in his report, saying,

  Ku Lou Hsi has been and still is a difficult problem. There is no ordained Chinese Pastor in charge and I think the evangelist feels his hands tied by one or two of the deacons who have been there for many years. In the class, we have the Evangelist, a man who has started a Christian bookshop, one or two of the Sunday School teachers, and some others. We have banded ourselves together to pray for one another daily for power, for we feel that we must start with ourselves. We want depth in ourselves first. I have tried to incorporate some of the Oxford Group principles which made such a difference to my own life.[55]

  The final days of January 1933 brought news of a major health concern for Florence. Exhausted from an intensive three months of clinicals in a psychiatric hospital, she struggled with a bout of anemia and had been forced to spend two weeks in bed. This was an alarmingly long scare as she drew nearer to her nursing school graduation finish line in May. In the dark hours of the night Florence wondered if she would see Eric again. Eric figured a nursing school was as good a place as any to fall ill but tossed and turned as he waited for news that Florence had pulled through with renewed health and vigor.

  That summer Hugh MacKenzie and Florence’s brother Finlay returned to China. Florence had graduated with her class in May, they told him, but still had six months of work left to complete before she could come home to Eric and their wedding plans. After being apart for so long, Eric deemed the short span of time doable.

  The good cheer and stories were welcomed, but other news shook him, such as when he heard of the sudden death of a missionary’s young wife.

  Eric penned a letter to the LMS Foreign Secretary Fra
ncis Hawkins:

  To think that she was at the May meetings being farewelled and then that within a few months God wanted her. . . . During my time at home last year I too was passing through a greater struggle than I had ever had before. It has brought me back here with a clearer message than before and a more personal Christ.[56]

  By early autumn, Rob and Ria returned to China. Rob had been anxious to get back to medical service as hospital superintendent in Siaochang, where he and Eric had been small boys together. There, Rob and Annie Buchan went to work together.

  As James and Mary had once left their children in England, Rob and Ria, on this trip back to their work, had done the same, leaving seven-year-old Peggy sobbing as their train pulled away from Waverley Station. She would now enter the School for the Daughters of Missionaries; they would not see her again for six years and, in their absence, she would go from little girl to teenager. As difficult a decision as it had been, Rob and Ria knew this was the way of missionary parents.

  But Eric couldn’t help but think that he had always had Rob to lean on as they grew up without the physical presence of their parents. When he heard of Peggy’s tears, he found himself dreading similar experiences that might await him as a father. Knowing how it felt to be on the receiving end, he considered the other side of the perspective even less comforting.

  On Sunday, November 12, 1933, Eric preached at Union Church. As he spoke from the pulpit, he felt the comforting presence of his father near him. The following morning Eric received a cable as he finished up breakfast. At only sixty-three years of age, James Liddell had passed away on Saturday at Eric’s Aunt Maggie’s home in Drymen, where he had gone to observe Remembrance Day. After taking a walk and visiting with friends, James had returned to Maggie’s, sat in a chair, suffered a massive stroke, and died.