Surely.
And then he and Flossie would grow old together. They’d gather the grandchildren and unfathomable joy would fill their home. They’d grow old together, sitting in front porch rockers—perhaps in Carcant with Jenny and Charles—and watch the sheep graze along the hillsides of Scotland.
Their parting only a few days earlier had not been their last time together.
Surely not.
ERIC HAD SOBERLY RETURNED to his work, never imagining how quickly it would evaporate before him. The hospital in Siaochang closed for good, which forced the missionaries to make yet another move.
Nurse Annie, who had long observed the handwriting on the wall, initially went to work at MacKenzie Hospital alongside Dr. Geoff Milledge. In time, however, she angled for a nursing reassignment to the Peking Union Memorial Hospital, most notably to enable her to care for a sick friend who lived in the city. Her persistent politicking paid off. After showing up at the Japanese district office in Tientsin every day for a week, she wore the commander down. He gave her his official approval, provided she never came back. Annie assured him she would not and went on her way. She figured the longer she was in a position of value, the safer she could be while still accomplishing her work.
During the summer months, Eric ventured to Pei Tai Ho as he had done for many years, but he found it nearly devoid of the vacationers who had once enjoyed it. These were lonelier days than he had known before, especially with his girls so far away. Japan’s presence in China had changed so much—in both large and small ways. Even the senior MacKenzies, who might have provided Eric some comfort, were no longer in China. Instead, they enjoyed a furlough in Canada, sharing a home with Eric’s wife and daughters.
As seemed to have been true for so much of his life, Eric was alone.
On the first day of September 1941, Eric returned to Tientsin. He moved in with A. P. Cullen, who had also sent his family to safer grounds and who had a flat in the French concession. The two men thought it quite something that at one time A. P. had been Eric’s teacher, then his missionary colleague, and now also his roommate. Above all, they were brothers in the Lord. And they were friends.
Each afternoon they enjoyed long walks together—a time when they could discuss the world’s situation at large and, more intimately, how it affected them personally. Eric also continued to ponder a book on discipleship he hoped to write—one that would one day serve Chinese pastors.
Together the two men celebrated life’s accomplishments—the birthdays of family members separated from them—with a cup of tea at the Cosy Club or an economical meal out at the Europa Café. And, with each passing day, Cullen noticed that the joy of the Lord never left Eric’s face.
That exuberance was most noticeable in mid-September when Eric received a cable from Canada telling him that Nancy Maureen Liddell had entered the world.
He quickly sent a cable back to Canada: “Wonderful news!”[75]
Eric remained busy by continuing in the work God had called him to. He bicycled around and preached, led Bible studies, and encouraged those he met along the way. But he could not help but notice that opportunities and freedoms lessened and stalled. He kept at it as best he could, eventually noting that—for the first time in perhaps his whole life—he had more time on his hands than he knew what to do with.
Weeks grew into months as communication slowed to a snail’s pace. Because of the increasingly unpredictable and intermittent postal service, news from “home” became feast or famine. At times, those in China felt relieved to get a single letter. At other times, they were astonished to receive over thirty letters in a single day.
Eric’s hunger for contact with loved ones living on the other side of the world grew.
Years later, A. P. Cullen noted that the one area of Eric’s life that fascinated him most was the rate at which Eric’s spiritual life developed, most especially in the face of war. This was fascinating to him, but not confusing. While no one could quite understand how Eric had been able to accomplish his feats in sports, Cullen knew exactly the formula for his spiritual medals. Years after Eric’s death, Cullen noted,
[Eric] had as a foundation the inestimable advantage of truly Christian inheritance and truly Christian parents, and he would be the first to acknowledge how much he owed to them. On this foundation, from the time he began to think for himself, he steadily and painstakingly built up that Christian character for which we honor him today.
Very early in his life he began to reveal that strength of determination and firmness of purpose which was such a marked feature of his character. . . . Since he came to China in 1925, I have been watching his progress. At first, while he was adjusting himself to his new work, there appeared to be nothing remarkable in that progress, but as the years have rolled by, the momentum has steadily increased; indeed, the growth of his spiritual life affords a remarkable parallel to his methods of running a race, for one of the astonishing things in his victories on the track, as we have already heard, was that he was always a bit slow in getting off the mark, mainly, I am convinced, because his fine conscience would never allow him to “beat the gun.”[76]
Cullen went on to describe Eric’s “conscientious thoroughness, attention to accuracy and detail,” which, he said, showed up in all of Eric’s work. Eric gave the greatest care and attention to everything he put his hands to. “Given these two qualities—an unflinching purpose and a finely sensitive conscience—add to them an ideal of a life completely dedicated to the service of God and men—and you have the secret of Eric Liddell’s career.”[77]
Whether Cullen realized it or not, in a few sentences he gave the world
