Eric also kept up his athletic regimen of football (soccer), rounders (a European form of baseball), basketball, tennis, and running. He even had a minor taste of mortality, as he admitted to losing a 100-meter race to some of his younger Chinese students. The students would not always point out that Eric had given them a 10-meter head start. Still, Eric could tell his body felt different in his late twenties than it did in his early twenties.
A not-too-surprising request came early in the fall for Eric to serve as coach for the football team. Eric wrote to Florence, telling her of the assignment. “We have a long way to go yet,” he shared, “before we get that spirit into our games that I should like.”[44]
Coaching brought joy to Eric, giving him the opportunity to pass on his love of healthy competition even while teaching with the highest degree of integrity. Trial, error, painful lessons, and controversial decisions all helped his team learn respect, trust, discipline, and how to work together—touchstones of Eric’s daily lifestyle.
Eric’s sportsmanship values had permeated through the roster by season’s end. His tendency to win, however, did not transmit so effortlessly. Still, his follow-up assessment of the season carried with it an air of moral victory when he realized that the students put more effort into a losing game and that they took the referee’s decision in a better spirit than they had done previously.
Eric knew that winning was not always possible and didn’t truly matter in the end. Fostering others to know victory in Christ was the real match.
Eric’s 1930 end-of-year report states,
The Spirit of our Master slowly works his way into our games, work and services. We do not see, like a builder does, great changes in a week or two, but here and there comes a word of cheer and a sight that makes you sure that the work is slow but sure. Here a boy begins to face life and definitely decides that he will face it, building his life with Christ as its foundation, and there another in the quiet makes his surrender too. . . .
The past year has in some ways been disappointing—for one thing, the difficult problem of getting a suitable Christian Principal has not yet been solved—but nevertheless we face this coming year with confidence and cheer, for we hear our Master saying, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”[45]
January 1931 ushered in a new urgency in Eric’s pressing decision of how best to spend his academic focus in Britain. The previous year Eric had requested a two-year furlough from his local missionary board at the college. This allotted plenty of time to finish his seminary training and would closely coincide with Florence’s completion of her nursing studies. Additionally, he reasoned, he could continue with advanced teaching education, which would make him even more effective in and out of the classroom. Eric figured that with his imminent return to the mission field and forthcoming wedding plans, never again would he have the singular freedom or time to invest in his studies.
The London Missionary Society’s governing board surprised Eric with the news of their recommendation. They would grant him only a one-year furlough. His time in Britain would be of the essence. Eric mulled over and prayed a great deal about his decision. He truly loved teaching and, in particular, Christian education. He revered the environment Dr. Hart had created at the college.
The lingering financial depression seemed to be spreading around the world, with no sign of slowing. Accordingly, school officials held serious recurring conversations about the vitality of the college, especially after the closing of the school in Chi Nan. The survival of Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College continued to be held in question as the Chinese government pushed stricter standards on the Christian college.
Would there even be a school for him to teach at when he returned?
Eric read the proverbial leaves in his teacup and went with what positioned him best for his future as well as the future of his potential family. He enrolled in the Scottish Congregational College for two terms, which he needed to complete for ordination. Having his teaching degree, six years of experience, and a formal seminary divinity degree and ordination into the pastoral ministry would set him up for a wide variety of professional opportunities.
Eric loved his work but had no reservations admitting the fun that came from looking forward to the year ahead. His final term came and went, and Eric was satisfied with all he had accomplished. He had done all anyone could have or would have expected of him—he had extended his stay an extra year, two times over, which providentially brought him to the end of a sixth academic year. He would be entering his seventh year in the mission field—divinely appropriate for a Sabbath’s rest.
For Eric Liddell, however, “rest” would be a relative term.
[42] Eric Liddell to Effie Hardie, January 31, 1930, Eric Liddell Centre, accessed September 21, 2017, http://ericliddell.org/about-us/ericliddell/personal-correspondence-of-eric-liddell/.
[43] Eric Liddell to Effie Hardie, February 19, 1929, Eric Liddell Centre, accessed November 15, 2017, http://www.ericliddell.org/about-us/eric-liddell/personal-correspondence-of-eric-liddell/.
[44] David McCasland, Eric Liddell: Pure Gold: A New Biography of the Olympic Champion Who Inspired Chariots of Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 2001), 155.
[45] Ibid., 157–58.
CHAPTER 13
A GAZE INTO THE LOOKING GLASS
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:8-9
Late August 1931
For the first time in six years, Eric stepped out of the train at Waverley Station in Edinburgh, Scotland, his heart and mind flurried by
