Never On Sunday
Monologues
Let Me Tell You ...
People Of Faith Speak To Their Times And Ours
I've experienced some paralysis in my left leg in recent days, some halting in my speech, and there are these recurring headaches. It is not like me. I've always been so healthy, so filled with energy. Those who have examined me say it is probably exhaustion. I've been trying to do too much in our effort to turn this prison compound into some sort of community. What keeps me going is the thought that my wife Florence, my daughters Patricia, Heather, and little Maureen, whom I have never seen, are safe in Canada. And the Lord has been with me. Indeed, I have often claimed for myself that verse in Isaiah that says, "... they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." To run and not be weary. That has often been my experience. When I have run I have felt God's pleasure.
My name is Eric Liddell. If you follow track at all, you may have heard about me. God gave me the ability to run, and that ability, in turn, helped me to touch the lives of others for Christ. Running has little to do with why you find me here now, in a Japanese internment camp, but all my experiences are related to my desire to serve God. If you have the time, I'd like to tell you about it.
My parents, who originated in Scotland, were both Congregational missionaries, serving in China. They came out here in 1899. Just about that time nationalistic Chinese, known as Boxers, were calling on peasants to drive all foreigners, especially Christians, from China. Before the Boxers were put down by the European powers, 200 Western missionaries and 30,000 Chinese Christians had been killed.
My parents had been serving in Mongolia, but had to flee to Tientsin where my brother, Robert, was born in 1900. Two years later I was born. My sister, Jenny, and brother, Ernest, were also born in China. In 1907 we returned to Scotland for a furlough. When my parents returned to China, in 1908, it was decided that Robert and I should stay in a boarding school for missionary children in Scotland. I was competent in my studies, but over the years I excelled in athletics -- cricket, rugby, and especially, track.
In 1920, I graduated from the boarding school and entered the University of Edinburgh for a four-year course in science. A friend heard that I had done some running in boarding school and encouraged me to go out for track at the University. I did, and raced against the school favorite. I lost by inches in the 220-yard race. It was the last race I would lose in Scotland. I began training in earnest. In 1922, I won the Scottish championships in the 100-yard and 220-yard events. In 1923, I broke the records for the 100, 220, and 440. Every week I was privileged to bring home new trophies for the school. I do not say these things to boast. I am convinced that the ability to accomplish these things came from God.
In 1923, a friend asked me to speak at a Christian Evangelistic meeting. I had been a Christian as far back as I could remember -- we were rooted in an evangelical fundamentalist tradition -- but I had never given a public testimony. On that occasion, I declared my faith in Christ before about eighty young men. I have never been much of a public speaker, but people were interested in listening because of my track record, and so I was invited to speak often, especially before groups of students and young adults.
The time for the 1924 Olympic Games, to be held in Paris, was approaching. In 1923, at a triangular contest between England, Scotland, and Ireland, I won the 100, the 220, and the 440, but I had what others called an appalling running style: head back, making it difficult to see the track, arms pummeling the air. I never should have won anything. When asked what was the secret of my success in the 440, I responded: "In the first half I run as fast as I can, and the second half I run faster with God's help." People expected me to give a more pious reason, like prayer. I told them simply, "The fact is, I don't like to be beaten." I was chosen to run the 100-meter and the 200-meter races for Britain in the Olympic Games. The 100-meter was the jewel of the Games, and I wanted sorely to win it. Then the timetables came out. The heats for the 100-meter were to be held on a Sunday. All my life I had been taught that Sunday was the Lord's Day. For me it was the Sabbath. It was a day for worship and prayer, not for competition.
I said I would not run on a Sunday. The British athletic authorities were horrified. Some newspapers called me a traitor. The 100-meter and 400-meter relays were also scheduled for a Sunday. I had to bow out of those. The athletic authorities then asked me to train for the 400-meter race. I began the arduous training for that event and discovered that I was well suited to it.
It was an unusually hot July in Paris that year, up to 113 degrees. Long-distance runners were dropping like flies. Even as we prepared for the races, my teammates kept urging me to compete in the other races. I felt I was letting my country down, but on Sunday, July 6, as others were running, I was off preaching at a small Scots church in Paris. On July 7, Harold Abrahams, a fellow Britisher, won the 100 meter. He went on to serve in athletics for the rest of his life. On July 8, I won the bronze in the 200 meter, but it was hardly noted in the Scots press. On July 10, I successfully survived the various rounds of the 400 meter, and in the finals I won the gold in world record time. The Scots press went wild.
My return to Scotland the following week coincided with my graduation from the University. Those planning the event presented me with an olive wreath and a poem written in my honor. Students carried me in a sedan chair to St. Giles Church, where there were more speeches. I reminded the students that we humans are composed of body, mind, and spirit, and only when each part is nurtured will we have the truest harmony for which God made us. At a dinner the next day I announced that running was not to be my career. My parents and my sister were serving as missionaries in China; my brother, Rob, had gone back as a medical missionary; and I intended to be a missionary also. There had been no dramatic moment of decision. I had always known that this is what I would do.
I subsequently enrolled at Scottish Congregational College so I could satisfy some of the theological requirements of my missionary service. I continued to run in some events, and I did well, but most of my spare time was spent in evangelistic work among the young men of Scotland. I don't have a great oratory style, but people came to hear me anyway, because of my accomplishment. In the summer of 1925 a great crowd came to the Edinburgh Railroad Station to see me off. Someone started to sing "Jesus Shall Reign," and soon all the station was belting out hymn after hymn.
When I arrived in China that summer, the Chinese were seething under foreign exploitation and unfair treaties. I was to teach science and supervise athletics and religious work at the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin. The Chinese were living in wretched poverty, while Europeans and Japanese lived safely in national neighborhoods with their own armies, police forces, and laws. The Chinese tolerated foreigners, but didn't like them. Missionaries were seen as symbols of western imperialism, and Chinese Christians were seen as lackeys. Control of the country was in the hands of hundreds of warlords. The Nationalists and the Communists were vying for power. China was a powder keg, ready to explode.
I continued to run, mostly against foreign troops stationed in China. Once I was in a race in Darien, Japan. There were just twenty minutes between the end of the race and the departure of the boat for my return to China. I won the race and kept on going, but the band started to play "God Save The King" and the "Marseillaise," so I had to stop and stand at attention. I hopped into a taxi and arrived at the dock as the boat was pulling out. I made a flying fifteen-foot jump and landed on the deck of the boat.
Among my duties in China was the superintendency of the Sunday school at the Union Church. Playing the piano there was Florence McKenzie, the daughter of Canadian missionaries. I fell in love with her and proposed to her in 1930. She accepted, but indicated that she needed to return to Canada for training as a nurse. That postponed our marriage for four years. I visited her and her family in Canada, as well as my own parents in Edinburgh, who were by then retired, when I was on furlough in 1931. The purpose of my furlough was to complete the course of study that would lead to my ordination. That was accomplished in 1932. While I was in Scotland, a reporter asked if I missed running, if I was sorry I had given up the competition. I responded, "A fellow's life counts for far more in what I am doing now than in running." The joy of breaking the tape, of being good at something brings satisfaction, but surrender to God means more.
While I was away from China, Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931. When I returned, a vicious civil war was under way between the Communist Red Army and the Nationalists. Florence completed her training and returned to Tientsin in 1934. We were married in March. During the next several years our two oldest daughters were born. I relished being with them and watching them grow. However, drought and the civil war were causing the mission board to seek missionaries who would work in the devastated villages of the interior. I did not want to leave my family, but I felt obliged to go.
I went to Siaochang, an impoverished village, caught between Japanese soldiers, Chinese guerrillas, and wandering bandits. Our mission compound, surrounded by mud walls, housed a hospital and a girls' school. I was an itinerating evangelist, visiting churches in an area the size of Wales. The people were suffering great privation, taxation, poor crops, and violence from all sides. Yet they were willing to hear the gospel. Executions were common. We collected the wounded and brought them to our hospital. I would periodically return to Tientsin to visit my family.
Eventually, the Japanese also took control of Tientsin. We were furloughed in 1939. I took Florence and the girls to Toronto while I returned to Edinburgh. By now Britain was at war with Germany. I volunteered for the R.A.F., but they told me that at 37 I was too old to fly. The family joined me in Edinburgh in 1940. In August, all of us left once again for China. Florence worked as a nurse in Tientsin. I returned to Siaochang. Devastation was everywhere. The Japanese controlled the area, forcing the villagers to build roads. Town after town was destroyed in the fighting, and our hospital and church were filled with wounded. While we were not belliger-ents, the Japanese attitude to foreign nationals was becoming more negative. Missionaries were harassed.
In 1941 we were ordered to leave Siaochang. We learned later that it had been completely destroyed. Tientsin was also becoming unsafe. We learned that British nationals were likely to be interned. The mission board made arrangements for missionaries to leave. I sent Florence and the children to Toronto, but I decided to stay to see what I could do to help. I expected to follow shortly. I received a telegram in September telling me of the birth of our third daughter. I have not seen her.
In December of 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Missionaries were ordered from their homes and required to move to the British neighborhood and to wear armbands displaying their nationality. Some of us applied for repatriation as part of an exchange of civilian nationals, but nothing came of it. In March of 1943, all enemy nationals were required to go to an internment camp in Shantung Province. The compound was a ruined American Presbyterian Mission station. Nothing worked. We had to organize a camp for 1,800 internees. Three hundred of them were children from a school for missionary children. I organized activities for the youth and became math and science teacher in the school we established. I tried to discourage Sunday games, but many of our inmates were business people who were indifferent to religious scruples.
Typhoid, malaria, dysentery, heat, and hunger have all taken their toll. As these months have progressed, I think all of us are slowly starving to death. I know my strength is not what it was.
Did I make a wrong decision in coming to China? No. I am confident that this is where God wanted me to be. Did I make a wrong decision in staying in China when my family left? Well, it was a wrong decision if my own well-being is the only consideration. But who knew for sure how any of this would turn out? I have been useful, and I believe that I have been faithful, and that gives me contentment. "... they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."
Epilogue: Eric Liddell died on February 21, 1945, apparently from a brain tumor, while he was detained in a Japanese internment camp in Shantung Province, China. He was 43 years old.
My name is Eric Liddell. If you follow track at all, you may have heard about me. God gave me the ability to run, and that ability, in turn, helped me to touch the lives of others for Christ. Running has little to do with why you find me here now, in a Japanese internment camp, but all my experiences are related to my desire to serve God. If you have the time, I'd like to tell you about it.
My parents, who originated in Scotland, were both Congregational missionaries, serving in China. They came out here in 1899. Just about that time nationalistic Chinese, known as Boxers, were calling on peasants to drive all foreigners, especially Christians, from China. Before the Boxers were put down by the European powers, 200 Western missionaries and 30,000 Chinese Christians had been killed.
My parents had been serving in Mongolia, but had to flee to Tientsin where my brother, Robert, was born in 1900. Two years later I was born. My sister, Jenny, and brother, Ernest, were also born in China. In 1907 we returned to Scotland for a furlough. When my parents returned to China, in 1908, it was decided that Robert and I should stay in a boarding school for missionary children in Scotland. I was competent in my studies, but over the years I excelled in athletics -- cricket, rugby, and especially, track.
In 1920, I graduated from the boarding school and entered the University of Edinburgh for a four-year course in science. A friend heard that I had done some running in boarding school and encouraged me to go out for track at the University. I did, and raced against the school favorite. I lost by inches in the 220-yard race. It was the last race I would lose in Scotland. I began training in earnest. In 1922, I won the Scottish championships in the 100-yard and 220-yard events. In 1923, I broke the records for the 100, 220, and 440. Every week I was privileged to bring home new trophies for the school. I do not say these things to boast. I am convinced that the ability to accomplish these things came from God.
In 1923, a friend asked me to speak at a Christian Evangelistic meeting. I had been a Christian as far back as I could remember -- we were rooted in an evangelical fundamentalist tradition -- but I had never given a public testimony. On that occasion, I declared my faith in Christ before about eighty young men. I have never been much of a public speaker, but people were interested in listening because of my track record, and so I was invited to speak often, especially before groups of students and young adults.
The time for the 1924 Olympic Games, to be held in Paris, was approaching. In 1923, at a triangular contest between England, Scotland, and Ireland, I won the 100, the 220, and the 440, but I had what others called an appalling running style: head back, making it difficult to see the track, arms pummeling the air. I never should have won anything. When asked what was the secret of my success in the 440, I responded: "In the first half I run as fast as I can, and the second half I run faster with God's help." People expected me to give a more pious reason, like prayer. I told them simply, "The fact is, I don't like to be beaten." I was chosen to run the 100-meter and the 200-meter races for Britain in the Olympic Games. The 100-meter was the jewel of the Games, and I wanted sorely to win it. Then the timetables came out. The heats for the 100-meter were to be held on a Sunday. All my life I had been taught that Sunday was the Lord's Day. For me it was the Sabbath. It was a day for worship and prayer, not for competition.
I said I would not run on a Sunday. The British athletic authorities were horrified. Some newspapers called me a traitor. The 100-meter and 400-meter relays were also scheduled for a Sunday. I had to bow out of those. The athletic authorities then asked me to train for the 400-meter race. I began the arduous training for that event and discovered that I was well suited to it.
It was an unusually hot July in Paris that year, up to 113 degrees. Long-distance runners were dropping like flies. Even as we prepared for the races, my teammates kept urging me to compete in the other races. I felt I was letting my country down, but on Sunday, July 6, as others were running, I was off preaching at a small Scots church in Paris. On July 7, Harold Abrahams, a fellow Britisher, won the 100 meter. He went on to serve in athletics for the rest of his life. On July 8, I won the bronze in the 200 meter, but it was hardly noted in the Scots press. On July 10, I successfully survived the various rounds of the 400 meter, and in the finals I won the gold in world record time. The Scots press went wild.
My return to Scotland the following week coincided with my graduation from the University. Those planning the event presented me with an olive wreath and a poem written in my honor. Students carried me in a sedan chair to St. Giles Church, where there were more speeches. I reminded the students that we humans are composed of body, mind, and spirit, and only when each part is nurtured will we have the truest harmony for which God made us. At a dinner the next day I announced that running was not to be my career. My parents and my sister were serving as missionaries in China; my brother, Rob, had gone back as a medical missionary; and I intended to be a missionary also. There had been no dramatic moment of decision. I had always known that this is what I would do.
I subsequently enrolled at Scottish Congregational College so I could satisfy some of the theological requirements of my missionary service. I continued to run in some events, and I did well, but most of my spare time was spent in evangelistic work among the young men of Scotland. I don't have a great oratory style, but people came to hear me anyway, because of my accomplishment. In the summer of 1925 a great crowd came to the Edinburgh Railroad Station to see me off. Someone started to sing "Jesus Shall Reign," and soon all the station was belting out hymn after hymn.
When I arrived in China that summer, the Chinese were seething under foreign exploitation and unfair treaties. I was to teach science and supervise athletics and religious work at the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin. The Chinese were living in wretched poverty, while Europeans and Japanese lived safely in national neighborhoods with their own armies, police forces, and laws. The Chinese tolerated foreigners, but didn't like them. Missionaries were seen as symbols of western imperialism, and Chinese Christians were seen as lackeys. Control of the country was in the hands of hundreds of warlords. The Nationalists and the Communists were vying for power. China was a powder keg, ready to explode.
I continued to run, mostly against foreign troops stationed in China. Once I was in a race in Darien, Japan. There were just twenty minutes between the end of the race and the departure of the boat for my return to China. I won the race and kept on going, but the band started to play "God Save The King" and the "Marseillaise," so I had to stop and stand at attention. I hopped into a taxi and arrived at the dock as the boat was pulling out. I made a flying fifteen-foot jump and landed on the deck of the boat.
Among my duties in China was the superintendency of the Sunday school at the Union Church. Playing the piano there was Florence McKenzie, the daughter of Canadian missionaries. I fell in love with her and proposed to her in 1930. She accepted, but indicated that she needed to return to Canada for training as a nurse. That postponed our marriage for four years. I visited her and her family in Canada, as well as my own parents in Edinburgh, who were by then retired, when I was on furlough in 1931. The purpose of my furlough was to complete the course of study that would lead to my ordination. That was accomplished in 1932. While I was in Scotland, a reporter asked if I missed running, if I was sorry I had given up the competition. I responded, "A fellow's life counts for far more in what I am doing now than in running." The joy of breaking the tape, of being good at something brings satisfaction, but surrender to God means more.
While I was away from China, Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931. When I returned, a vicious civil war was under way between the Communist Red Army and the Nationalists. Florence completed her training and returned to Tientsin in 1934. We were married in March. During the next several years our two oldest daughters were born. I relished being with them and watching them grow. However, drought and the civil war were causing the mission board to seek missionaries who would work in the devastated villages of the interior. I did not want to leave my family, but I felt obliged to go.
I went to Siaochang, an impoverished village, caught between Japanese soldiers, Chinese guerrillas, and wandering bandits. Our mission compound, surrounded by mud walls, housed a hospital and a girls' school. I was an itinerating evangelist, visiting churches in an area the size of Wales. The people were suffering great privation, taxation, poor crops, and violence from all sides. Yet they were willing to hear the gospel. Executions were common. We collected the wounded and brought them to our hospital. I would periodically return to Tientsin to visit my family.
Eventually, the Japanese also took control of Tientsin. We were furloughed in 1939. I took Florence and the girls to Toronto while I returned to Edinburgh. By now Britain was at war with Germany. I volunteered for the R.A.F., but they told me that at 37 I was too old to fly. The family joined me in Edinburgh in 1940. In August, all of us left once again for China. Florence worked as a nurse in Tientsin. I returned to Siaochang. Devastation was everywhere. The Japanese controlled the area, forcing the villagers to build roads. Town after town was destroyed in the fighting, and our hospital and church were filled with wounded. While we were not belliger-ents, the Japanese attitude to foreign nationals was becoming more negative. Missionaries were harassed.
In 1941 we were ordered to leave Siaochang. We learned later that it had been completely destroyed. Tientsin was also becoming unsafe. We learned that British nationals were likely to be interned. The mission board made arrangements for missionaries to leave. I sent Florence and the children to Toronto, but I decided to stay to see what I could do to help. I expected to follow shortly. I received a telegram in September telling me of the birth of our third daughter. I have not seen her.
In December of 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Missionaries were ordered from their homes and required to move to the British neighborhood and to wear armbands displaying their nationality. Some of us applied for repatriation as part of an exchange of civilian nationals, but nothing came of it. In March of 1943, all enemy nationals were required to go to an internment camp in Shantung Province. The compound was a ruined American Presbyterian Mission station. Nothing worked. We had to organize a camp for 1,800 internees. Three hundred of them were children from a school for missionary children. I organized activities for the youth and became math and science teacher in the school we established. I tried to discourage Sunday games, but many of our inmates were business people who were indifferent to religious scruples.
Typhoid, malaria, dysentery, heat, and hunger have all taken their toll. As these months have progressed, I think all of us are slowly starving to death. I know my strength is not what it was.
Did I make a wrong decision in coming to China? No. I am confident that this is where God wanted me to be. Did I make a wrong decision in staying in China when my family left? Well, it was a wrong decision if my own well-being is the only consideration. But who knew for sure how any of this would turn out? I have been useful, and I believe that I have been faithful, and that gives me contentment. "... they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."
Epilogue: Eric Liddell died on February 21, 1945, apparently from a brain tumor, while he was detained in a Japanese internment camp in Shantung Province, China. He was 43 years old.
