They’d talked of everything, just as they’d always done. School and work. China and its political unrest. Family and friends.
Their upcoming nuptials.
“Are you counting the days?” Eric had asked Florence, and she’d assured him with the number.
“Easier to think in terms of weeks or even months,” she had said. “Days makes it almost unbearable.”
“Eric!” Jenny’s voice penetrated his thoughts.
He turned, saw his family standing to the left of the crowd, and waved.
The familiarity of it all sent a shock wave through him, met by the unfamiliar parting the last time he’d stood on this very platform. Then, he’d been given a hero’s farewell. Now, only blood relatives stood to welcome him.
After their customary hugs and kisses and Mary dabbing at her tears with a dainty handkerchief, eighteen-year-old Ernest hurried toward baggage to retrieve Eric’s luggage. Jenny looped her arm with her brother’s as they walked behind their parents and said, “I’ve got news.”
Eric smiled down at her. “What’s that?”
“I’m getting married.”
Eric halted, Jenny with him. “No! And who is this chap?”
“His name is Dr. Charles Somerville,” she rattled on. “He’s a tad older than me . . .”
“Define ‘a tad.’”
Jenny wrinkled her nose as she lowered her voice to admit, “Twenty-six years.”
“Good heavens!” The words burst from Eric as they began to walk again. “I suppose Flo and I are in the clear, then. You’ve seen my romantic wager and have raised the bid significantly.”
Jenny squeezed her brother’s arm. “I’m crazy mad about him, Eric.”
“When is the wedding?”
“April. Rob and Ria are coming. And, of course, you’ll be there.”
THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY had salivated at the opportunity of penning Eric in on their deputation schedule. Traveling on behalf of the LMS and raising funds for the further advancement of the mission was understood. But Eric was not the conventional speaker in rotation. As an Olympic gold medalist and national hero, the LMS saw him more as their poster boy, the kind which appears only once in a generation. He discovered almost immediately that his speaking schedule was monstrous, matching the ravenous financial need during the Great Depression.
And this was merely the timetable the LMS had planned. An outpouring of other requests rained upon Eric to the awkward point that a separate committee of the Congregational Church had to be put together to discern and deal with all the lecture requests. And, of course, D. P. Thomson’s plans had to be considered.
On Saturday, September 4, 1931, Thomson recorded in his journal that he had spent time with Eric that day and found him fit and happy—the same old Eric, “obviously glad to see me.”[46]
A few days later, Eric stayed at Thomson’s home where they discussed plans for meetings for the short period they had together. Eric expressed to Thomson that he felt the pressure of the schedule that had been set for him.
“It must be realized,” Thomson wrote in his book Scotland’s Greatest Athlete, “that, apart from the pressure of public engagements and the obvious need for time with his own family, and for the necessary rest and recreation after those strenuous years overseas, Eric had undertaken quite a demanding course of study.”[47]
By the last day of September there was no hiding the fact that Scotland’s favorite son had returned—older, wiser, and darkened by China’s sun, his receding hairline more pronounced by age. And on that day, St. George’s West Church in Edinburgh found itself packed with interested representatives from the sporting and religious communities gathered for a public welcome.
Eric rose to speak. He deflected the praise to the best of his efforts. “I accept your welcome,” he said,
not in my own name, but in the name of a great many others. I accept your welcome in the names of those countless men, whose names are almost unknown, who went into places of danger and difficulty and hazarded their lives for the sake of Jesus Christ, and who came back after they had done those things and were never welcomed. In the name of these men and others I accept it. I think we should always remember the men who have made the task we go to far easier than otherwise it would have been.
In China, the evangelists are going out among the people. They are going into their homes. They are sleeping in places just the same as the Chinese themselves. They are trying to understand the problems those people have to face, and the greatest challenge there is to every Christian person asks for no great courage, but asks for patience and sympathy that we will be able to sit beside those whose opinions are different from our own, and try to enter into their problems and face them from their point of view.
Tonight I want to leave a message with you all. 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.[48]
Eric knew through observing others and by firsthand knowledge that some people reacted adversely to the presentation of the gospel while others readily embraced it. He had evaluated this in his own public speaking, private conversations, and the mission field. He had carefully observed numerous others proclaim and share the gospel, netting various responses. He was eager to determine through Scripture why this was and to discover the best approach to cultivate and invest his energies.
Eric loved Jesus because Jesus loved Eric—and the world. Eric found it inconceivable that anyone could reject that beautiful truth if they truly understood just how much Christ loved them and to what lengths he went to save them. The interplay of law and gospel, and more specifically how Eric might convey that distinction to his audiences, was again at stake. The handling
