Jack Voelkel
Eric Liddell: Olympian and missionary (part 2)
In many ways Liddell was the kind of person who, in my heart of hearts,
I'd always dreamed of being. . . .Few lives have more to teach us about the virtue of honor.
(Sir David Puttnam, producer of Chariots of Fire).[i]
(continued from part 1)
Following a year of theological study, Eric was on his way to China to teach in the Anglo-Chinese College.Thousands saw him off at the railroad station, and as the train pulled out, Eric began to sing, “Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun.” The crowd took it up and as the train wound over the hills and out of sight sang all the verses.
In China, Eric found that he had to learn Chinese all over again, while struggling to teach science, religion, and sports at the college. He began a weekly Bible study for the students in his home, and soon was asked to be Sunday School superintendant at his father’s church. In the process, he met a high school senior, Florence Mackenzie, and when she graduated they were engaged. However, they didn’t marry for three years until she had returned to Canada and finished her nurses training.
He found time to participate in the Far Eastern Games organized by the Japanese which invited top athletes from the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games. He won both the 220 meter and 400 meter races. In both races he tied the winning times at Amsterdam – without the support of a national program and without adequate facilities to train. Eric was so fast, his daughter Patricia actually witnessed him chase down and catch a rabbit for rabbit pie during the period of war rationing (Christian History).
During his first furlough in Scotland he gave a speech at a “Welcome Home Meeting” in Edinburgh, a rally attended by leading church officials and members of the sports community. He shared his purpose in life: “We are all missionaries. We carry our religion with us, or we allow our religion to carry us. Wherever we go, we either bring people nearer to Christ, or we repel them from Christ. We are working for the great Kingdom of God…” (Caughey p. 136).
Siaochang
Back in China, he was united in marriage to Florence who had returned from Canada, and continued teaching in the Anglo-Chinese college. However, his parents’ old station, Siaochang desperately needed help, and the mission asked him to go. He resisted. He wrote the mission, “I am more equipped for educational work, both by training and temperament…I’m not a village pastor. I’m a teacher” (Caughey p. 152).
Florence quietly countered his thoughts with her own. “Eric, you knew it was wrong to run on Sunday, and you know it’s wrong not to go where God has called you. You have no choice but to go.” He went. Later Florence wrote to a mutual friend, “After much prayerful consideration of all the points involved, he felt God was calling him to the country, and I think it was quite obvious he did the right thing. He loved the work, his health improved, and I think he blossomed out in a new way” (Caughey p. 153).
Leaving the family in Tientsin, Eric threw himself into the many needs of Siaochang. It was a chaotic time. Japanese soldiers were ravaging the country. The Chinese army was divided between Mao Tse Tung and Chiang Kai-shek. Bandits were everywhere. The drought brought famine and desperation. Eric was everywhere, doing what he could for people, binding up the wounded, giving words of cheer and hope through the Gospel, and strengthening the Chinese leaders.
But with war clouds building up between Japan and the West, he decided to send Florence to Canada with the children. As he kissed her good-bye, he reminded her, “Those who love God never meet for the last time” (Coughery p. 172). They were never to meet again in this life.
During these days Eric wrote a Manuel of Christian Discipleship, as a guidebook for pastors. In it he shared the routine of daily devotions he had maintained for years. Each morning he would ask himself the following questions:
1. Have I surrendered this new day to God, and will I seek and obey the guidance of the Holy Spirit throughout its hours?
2. What have I specially to thank God for this morning?
3. Is there any sin in my life for which I should seek Christ’s forgiveness and cleansing? Is there any apology or restitution to make?
4. For whom does God want me to pray this morning?
5. What bearing does this morning’s Bible passage have on my life, and what does He want me to do about it?
6. What does God want me to do today and how does He want me to do it? (Coughery p. 174).
Weihsien – Shantung Compound[i]
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war, the Japanese authorities forced the 1,800 foreign residents still in China into Shantung Compound, what had formerly been a mission school, an area 150 by 200 yards. Later, 300 children of missionaries from the Chefoo school were added.
The internees were given few rules, little supervision and minimal rations. They organized themselves, produced a hospital, services and a school for the children. Eric carried water for the sick and elderly, arranged games, taught Bible classes and grounded youngsters in chemistry with a textbook hand-written from memory. Those who knew him during those bleak months said that he truly lived out Christ's Sermon on the Mount (Christian History). He served as a Christian counselor. One survivor later said, “When personal relationships got just too impossible…he had a gentle, humorous way of soothing ruffled tempers and bringing to one’s mind some bygone happiness or the prospect of some future interest round the corner ‘when we got out’” (Coughery p. 185).
When Eric was asked to supervise the sports activities, he agreed so long as it didn’t include the Lord’s Day. One Sunday, when the teenagers were playing hockey, they got into a fight, with tempers flaring and accusations flying. The next week, on a Sunday, to everyone’s surprise, Eric showed up and supervised their play. The man who would risk losing an Olympic gold medal for his convictions was willing to break his rule for the greater good of the needs of his young friends.
As the months dragged on, people noticed a change in Eric’s personality. He also complained of constant severe headaches. In time it was discovered that he had a brain tumor which took his life several months before release.
The whole camp attended the funeral service for all loved the man who had barely reached his 43rd birthday. In his oration, the Reverend Arnold Bryson lifted up Eric’s life and character and the secret of his far-reaching influence:
His was a God-controlled life and he followed his Master and Lord with devotion that never flagged and with an intensity of purpose that made men see both the reality and power of true religion…Our friend, whose happy, radiant face…will surely live on in the hearts and lives of all who knew him (Coughery p. 200).
Sixty years later, in August of 2005, Chinese officials, old friends and fellow inmates laid a wreath at a memorial marking Eric’s grave during a ceremony remembering the anniversary of the liberation of the internment camp. During the occasion, Stephen Metcalf, 78, gave testimony to Eric in these words: "He gave me two things. One was his worn-out running shoes.” (It was winter, and like many boys Metcalf had nothing to wear on his feet.) "But the best thing he gave me was his baton of forgiveness. He taught me to love my enemies, the Japanese, and to pray for them" (Spencer).
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize…we do it to get a crown that will last forever.
(1 Cor 9:24, 25)
Bibliography
Coughey, Ellen.. Eric Liddell. Olympian and Missionary. Uhrichsville, OH, Barbour: 2000.
Eric Liddell: Champion Athlete Devoted to God; His Life Was Much More than a Race for Olympic Gold. Christian History Institute. http://chi.gospelcom.net/GLIMPSES/Glimpses/glmps161.shtml, 2000.
Gilkey, Langdon Brown. Shantung Compound. San Francisco: Harper, 1975.
Spencer, Richard Chariots of Fire hero honoured in homeland – China, http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Swift, Catherine. Eric Liddell. Minneapolis: Bethany: 1990.
Ward's Book of Days. Eric Liddell. http://www.wardsbookofdays.com/16january.htm.
[i] Langdon Gilkey’s book, Shantung Compound, describes his own experiences in the Weihsien Prison Compound where Eric Liddell was interned, though he doesn’t mention Eric by name.
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