Eric Liddell | Champion of Conviction (2008) | Full Movie | David McCasland | Patricia Russell

fame success well goals for which of the majority of humanity seek after we strive to be accepted admired and looked up to but once in a while someone stands out someone who says no when others urge them to say yes someone who turns and walks a road that others tell them cannot be drawn what makes a person do this even to his own hurt or loss they call it conviction an unshakable belief which cannot be persuaded otherwise [Music] in 1902 in the city of Tianjin northern China a second son was born to James and Mary little a dedicated and hardworking missionary couple from Scotland they named the boy Erik can read little my maternal grandparents were missionaries in China for the Presbyterian Church from Canada and my paternal grandparents were missionaries in China from the congregation of the Congregational Church in Scotland and they went out through the London mission internal turmoil was sort of generic to China in that time politically militarily it was just very unstable and in the early around 1900 there was a strong anti Western movement that came to be known as the Boxer Rebellion and it was a group of people who essentially they believed that if they chanted certain words and did certain things that they could not be harmed by bullets knives or any other thing they were immortal it was not strictly anti-christian it was anti-western anti-european it was due to the rise of Chinese nationalism and a feeling that the Westerners were taking advantage of the Chinese people but this was a very violent group and they their goal was to get the Westerners out of China they burned schools businesses homes churches they killed a number of missionaries they killed far more Chinese Christians than they did Western missionaries but this caused a great deal of upheaval and chaos the Boxer Rebellion caused Eric's father and mother to have to leave the mission station where they were in Mongolia they went for a time to share which was relatively safe Eric's older brother Rob was born in Shanghai in 1900 and then they relocated to the city of tents in Eric's pennies basically his first five years in a rural mission station at Xiao Zhang in the countryside and when he was about five years old it was time for his father's first furlough when they returned to Scotland the littles had three children Rob Eric and their younger sister Jenny I'm sure it was a little strange when they arrived in the green hills of Scotland which was completely unlike the North China Plain but there was also a great deal more freedom that they had his boys to just roam around and explore and do things on their own when they were in China and lived in Xiao Zhang they had to stay inside the walled compound because it was simply unsafe for them to be outside on their own and they spent about a year there and at the end of that year as was customary for missionaries in the London Missionary Society they planned to leave Rob and Eric and boarding school a place called the school for the sons of missionaries just outside London and this was very difficult for Eric's mother even though it was the accepted practice in their mission she dreaded it and she just could hardly bring herself to do that the plan the standard procedure for missionaries with the LMS is that they only saw their children when their furlough came up and that was once every seven years but there were they both grown up in missionary families where there was great sacrifice and and it was you just expected it I get in my father's case as a child you know he and his brother born in China and at six they had to leave their children and not see them for seven years an incredible sacrifice I think for my grandmother that was very very hard and so they were educated at the Eltham College no just outside of London here and they saw them every 7 years I never picked up the idea that Rob and Eric resented being left in boarding school by their parents even though I'm sure the separation was difficult mary little wrote them a letter every week and also it was school policy that the boys wrote their parents a letter every week it didn't have to be lengthy but at least it had to be a letter and I think it was usually done in a situation where on a Saturday morning it was time for everyone to write the letter and you didn't get to go out and play until the letter was completed so there was motivation to get it done the next time Eric saw his parents he was 12 years old his parents and sister along with new brother Ernest returned to England for a rest from their Labour's in China as one can expect it was a treasured time but the visit went by rather quickly 12 months later as the boy's family once again returned to their work in China Rob and Eric remained in school [Music] when Eric and Rob were at Eltham college they had the annual Sports days and both Rob and Eric were gifted athletes they were fast on the track they were good at cricket and at rugby and as they became teenagers the annual placement in the sports days looked like an all little sports day Rob and Eric was sort of alternate taking first in different events during their time at school Rob and Eric began to show exceptional athletic ability when he was 16 Eric was named senior athletic champion and was awarded the school trophy he became the captain of both cricket and rugby and the records show one year in which both boys were the only names in 1st and 2nd place of 6 athletic events in fact Eric set a new record at the school for the 100 yards coming in at ten point two seconds returning seven years later it was no small surprise that Eric's parents would not find two boys waiting for them at the train station but rather two young men Rob was now 21 years old and Eric 19 both of them were now students at the Edinburgh University when Eric was at the University of Edinburgh he was involved in track meets although the Athletics as they called it in Scotland at the time and he also liked to play rugby because he had played rugby at Eltham college and so he began to play for the Edinburgh University team there was a Scottish national team it was still an amateur team but it was the representative of the country in a series of international rugby matches and they would play against England Wales and France and it was a great honor to be chosen for the international rugby team famous win third quarter in a Scottish international team between 1922 23 played seven times for Scotland and it was more than just a runner it was well one can imagine he was a wholehearted guy and he went into it with great gusto and somebody said well when you were tackled by Eric little you remained tackled you know it wasn't as though he was a runner who shipped doing that sort of thing but as far as in athletics was concerned he he just he just was saw out on his own and Scotland he swept the boards from when he first started running and he had to be cajoled into running in 1921 University sports from that time on in Scotland he dominated any athletic meeting using Eric was participating in track and rugby concurrently but as he began to develop more as a runner and with the possible with the Olympics looming in Paris in 1924 it was felt that if he wanted to try for the Olympics that playing rugby was probably not smart because it was very it was basically a blood and mud sport and injury was very common so after two years of playing on the international team in 1923 he played his last rugby matches and it was time to just concentrate on running so he would go down to a place in powder in Edinburgh known as powder Hall where they also had greyhound races so you had the dogs and the men working out at the same time I think and there was a trainer there named Tommy Mukherjee Norris the Scots would say Tommy meketa Kerr and he noticed Eric running and he was involved in helping to train the Edinburgh University team so he began to point out some things that Eric was doing wrong and really took him under his wing and as Eric's running developed he really became Eric's personal trainer he began breaking records on basis they were often track meets in which he finished first in the 100 the 220 and the 440 and you know his the Triple Crown was often what he ended up with Erik little had an unusual running style his knees pumped very high up toward his chest his arms sort of rotated like a windmill and then as he neared the finish line he would character list characteristically throw his head back with his mouth open and looking at the sky would go across the finish line and everyone thought it was just impossible for him to win anything with this unorthodox style but he was fast and it's interesting that Tommy my character didn't try to train that out of him he tried to help relax his muscles make sure that he was loose that he would ready to run but he never tried to change his style there's a court that I dug out from the Glasgow Herald in 19 the the autumn of 1921 seeing that edit little might even develop into an Olympic hero that was after the first season that had been running there was obviously recognized that he was an unusual talent at one point during this time Eric felt he wanted to be of service to God but he had no idea how his strong points were his athletic ability his speed on the track but that he felt was about all he had no idea how God could use those gifts but regardless he placed them and himself entirely at God's disposal about the time that Eric was completing his education at the University of Edinburgh he travelled to the town of galas shields for a track meet and there he met a young man named Loudon Hamilton and Hamilton was involved with a group of people who were very serious about their Christian faith they emphasized a relationship with Jesus Christ and knowing him and talking to the Lord just as you would talk to a friend and they were also very keen on studying the Bible and applying it to their lives and following trying following the the discipline of the four absolutes in their life absolute purity absolute unselfishness absolute honesty and absolute love and Eric was intrigued by this and this group at that time had no name it later became known as the Oxford group movement and it was a great source of strength and help to Eric from that point on in his life one thing that the Oxford group emphasized was having a time each day they called it a quiet time to be alone with God and during that time a person would read a portion from the Bible would talk to the Lord in prayer but then would also simply be silent seeking to listen to what the Lord would say to them and how the Lord would direct them for that particular day this became a lifelong practice of Eric little he would begin each day with this quiet time early in the morning many times when no one else was awake to read a portion of the Bible to pray and to be quiet and listen to the Lord keeping up with his studies and athletics was a challenge and one which Eric enjoyed but as his popularity grew Eric was faced with a challenge of a different kind dee Pete Thompson was a very energetic enthusiastic divinity student at Glasgow University he was training to become a minister and he was also a member of a student evangelistic team that held meetings in various places on weekends and during the school holidays and they were holding meetings at a little coal mining town not far from Edinboro and they were having difficulty interesting the coal miners and coming to hear these young students speak about Christianity DP Thompson said why don't we see if Erick little would come and tell about his Christian experience so he went to Edinboro and asked him and Eric little said yes even though it took him way out of his comfort zone because he was not a public speaker he was very uneasy speaking in public he was a shy person quiet and reserved but he'd also been praying about how he could serve the Lord and he really didn't know what he could do his gifts were athletic not in terms of preaching but when this opportunity came up I think his heart was was ready and open and so he told DP Thompson that he would go with him and he did years later Eric would recall the event I was faced with the biggest problem of my life I had been asked to assist at an evangelistic campaign but at the time I had never addressed the public gathering I was very reluctant about accepting the invitation the morning after being invited I received a letter from my sister in China and it contained this text fear not for I am with thee do not be dismayed for i will guide thee those words helped me make my decision and since then i have endeavored to do the work of my master one of the results of the meeting was that it did attract a good number of coal miners in this village to come and hear him another result of it was that a newspaper reporter picked up on the idea that Eric little had talked about his Christian faith at this evangelistic meeting and news of that of course got into the press so Eric became known or not only just as a good athlete but as one with a strong Christian faith he felt who's going to come and lesson but those are those times when he went to speaking his huge crowds huge crowds and a brought in people that really might not have been interested in religion as such but more into sports let's see what this sports hero has to say a lot of people did come to hear Eric little speak when he began to give his Christian testimony more often they used to say that Eric's presence at any track meet was good for another 5,000 people for gate admission but people picked up on his sincerity he was not a good public speaker he was not a great orator but he was sincere he was genuine and he was a top athlete so the combination of that and the notice in the press about his first evangelistic meeting did create a lot of interest on the part of people he was often very self-deprecating and humorous and people would talk about his being so fast and he would say well I got it from my Scottish ancestors who would cross the border to raid the English and then they had to run back home and he said I've been running ever since he spoke in boys clubs he spoken i Brookes football stadium and young men from all of the countries slow to actually hear what he had to say my own view on this is that whilst DB Thompson had a very specific and direct influence in getting him involved in the evangelistic meetings in the 20s began in 1923 I think that the an influence in a little that has not been recognized sufficiently I think I'm right in saying this really as the influences older brother and Robert Robert was very definite evangelical Christian he went to study medicine somewhat before eloquent came up to Edinburgh and he also did some running actually Robert but not a serious level that Eric did but he was very committed to student evangelism and I do believe that Roberts influence on Eric was possibly even greater than DP thompson's it was well at the same time felipito service I think instrumental in getting actually involved practically speaking in in the in the evangelistic work and these meetings after the Athletics meetings and so on [Music] Eric was beginning to be seen as favored runner for the Olympics a possible member of the team as early as 1923 the Olympic team selection at that time was very tentative until just actually a few weeks before the games because they had a final competition and the the roster the final roster was not selected until that time but Eric was beginning to think about the Olympics he was beginning to train for it but when the schedule was announced the preliminary heats for the hundred meters at which he was considered to be the fastest person in the world and practically a shoo-in for a gold medal the heats were on Sunday and Eric said I'm sorry I can't compete in that event because I believe that the Christian Sabbath is the Lord's Day and so I can't run on that day there was a mixed reaction some people applauded his conviction some people thought it was admirable other people thought that he needed to bend a little bit and consider the good of his country and one person said well you know the heats aren't until the afternoon and the continental Sabbath ends at noon on Sunday and Eric said well my Sabbath lasts all day so I can't do that I think increasingly young people are faced with choices that generationally somebody like me would not have been faced with and that in because Jay Eric Lidell came from a generation even previous two main choices that he would not have been faced with but he was faced faced with a choice that related very directly to the type of culture and time that he was growing up in and he made a very very important choice in in terms of not running on the Sabbath youngsters nowadays would probably laugh that that type of choice but they are faced with with choices that can have much more and much greater impact on their life in in in terms of consequences for the life and years ahead Eric littles decision not to run on Sunday in the Olympics I think was a very easy decision to make because it was it was simply a conviction that was a part of him it would be like someone finding a person's wallet on the sidewalk and a person who is committed to honesty would never think of looking inside to see if there was any money before deciding whether to try and return it to the individual it would be simply a matter of someone has lost this it belongs to another person I'll do all I can to help return it they would not go and hide and see whether it was worth stealing or not Erik's decision not to run on Sunday was not one that he had to agonize over and pray about Scotland had never won gold and here was an opportunity that would make his country proud Eric was under pressure the pressure however had nothing to do with the question of what he should do Eric was already resolved not to go back on his convictions the pressure was that he was letting down his country whether or not pressure was put on the authorities in France to change the sharing of the games I haven't had that confirmed and I would say that that would be unlikely International Olympic Committee would not likely change just because one conscientious athlete from one nation was not going to compete in an event that he might have been successful in there would have been those who would not have appreciated very much his stance there that had been lost before him who had been professing Christians and had not had the same conscientiousness about the Lord's Day but certainly Eric had conscientiousness about it and whatever pressure might have been brought to bear upon him he wasn't going to wilt our yield on that principle so actually they worked out a pretty amiable compromise Eric was planning to run the 100 meters and the 200 and when he felt that he could not run the 100 because the heats were on Sunday he remained a candidate for the 200 and also he began training for the 400 although he was not considered to be a contender for a gold medal at either the 200 or the 400 meters doubts about his ability on the 400 ran high one journalist wrote it is unfortunate that eh littles religious scruples will not permit of him running on Sunday which rules him out of the short sprint for I am not at all confident regarding his prospects in the 400 meters surrounded by this gossip Eric went to Paris I think there are three tremendous factors in what he did in Paris the 1924 that make it remarkable the first was that he was inexperienced really he hadn't run internationally at 440 yards 400 metres previously the second remarkable thing was the number of races Iran show shortly after one another on the thirsty he ran first of the second rounds within a few hours and on the Friday iran's semi-final and final within four hours he had never run back-to-back 400 meters before - and one day never until he went to paris and yet in these four races he improved his time and every race it's quite remarkable and the third remarkable thing about his success in paris i think was that he was very disadvantaged being in the outside lane there was a 500 meter track there was one band one band on me so they started at one Street and went around a varial might been but he was an outside great disadvantage everything seemed to be a disadvantage in a sense and I think that these factors make this very remarkable performance I think on the last day of competition in the 400 meters as Erick left his hotel in Paris to go to the stadium one of the masseurs for the British team handed him a note and he said I'll read it when I get to the stadium and it contained a verse from the Old Testament that the word the Lord says him that honours me I will honor also and it was a real encouragement to Eric because there had been people who criticized him for standing true to a conviction of faith saying that he should consider other people in his country and he didn't consider it a promise from God that he would win the race but he did consider it an encouragement that he had done the right thing no one expected Eric to excel as the starting gun went off he seemed to - ahead with great speed but speed that would certainly not sustain him to the finish line he would surely lag behind surely at the last 100 yards however it was at this point ahead of the other competitors that Eric went into his then well-known stride putting his head back Eric increased his pace the crowd went wild spectators rising to their feet to everyone's surprise Eric won the gold by 5 meters and set a new world record the Olympic gold was lovely but it wasn't the most important and I truly truly believe that if he had run on the Sunday that he would not have got a board medal because he would have sold his for him anyway not for he didn't make these judgments for anybody else this was only for himself if those were his beliefs and his judgments if he had sold out his principles for the gold he would not have wanted he wouldn't have had the fire to do that but this was this way he was running for God I don't think for one minute that he sat beside his bed or knelt beside his bed the night before and said God let me win a gold medal tomorrow I think for many years beforehand he trained very very hard he was he was disciplined in what he was doing and he worked very very hard at it I'm sure though that having done that and had having worked with his trainer he would then of said well Lord this is what I have to offer and I wanted him a very very best I've done all the training I've done all the work hope that you'll just give me that extra push that helps me to win here was a man who was a Christian and he worked out his Christianity it affected at an impact on his sport it wasn't just a question of the Lord's Day it was the whole attitude to it he was asked by a missionary did you ever pray that you would win a race and I suppose Christians have been asked that before and since did you ever pray that you were in a race and he said no I never prayed that I would run a race but I prayed for the Athletics meetings that in these the Lord would be glorified Erik little returned to Scotland as the national hero at his graduation ceremony the university's vice-chancellor sir Alfred Ewing stated mr. little you have shown that no one can surpass you accept your examiners the audience responded with laughter and then to the delight of all present Eric was crowned with a wild olive wreath after he graduated his fellow students picked him up and put him in a chair and carried him from the University and through the streets there was this grand celebration there were dinners there were banquets it just went on and on which when you think about it Eric little was 22 years old when all that happened that's a that's a pretty that could be a difficult situation for the average 22 year old to have all of this attention from media from people of being cheered of being honored everyone saying how wonderful he is but it never seems to go to his head it did not give him a feeling of self-importance at all he was just he continued being the person that he had been before as celebrations and congratulatory events continued throughout the weeks DEP Thompson was busy filling up the rest of the year with evangelistic meetings in which Eric would be speaking Oh after after he won the gold medal his notoriety and celebrity was increased even more so that there were crowds of people that came to hearing whatever he spoke [Music] it was in one of the many events in which he was honoured that Eric stunned his audience giving an after-dinner speech he announced his intentions of dedicating himself as a missionary teacher in China well those that really knew him it wasn't a shock but I think a lot of others felt that he could stay in Scotland and do just as good at work you know get a lot of those the youth but he felt very strongly about him he felt that those that had worked out in China the road there as missionaries had done so much more than he had he said why should I get the limelight you know they are doing the same work or some of them even more and his running was a gift from God and and it certainly helped him along and he enjoyed running and and he enjoyed the fun of it too but not so that you think that you're something really above everybody else and his sport led him to greater things it it was not the be-all and end-all it certainly was not the big thing was his work in China his missionary work well like most university students in your in the senior year you keep thinking okay well what do I do next and people keep asking you know what are you going to do when you finish college so he had been casting about he wasn't sure his brother Rob had already committed to go to China as a doctor with the London Missionary Society Eric was a little less sure about what he wanted to do or should do but I would think that around the time of the Olympics he had decided that he wanted to try being a missionary teacher in China and he had been offered a position at the anglo-chinese College in tents in for a period of four years to see how it went so after his Olympic victory it became commonly known that he was planning to stay in Scotland for another year and then go to China as a missionary teacher in 1925 when Eric little left Scotland for China a number of his athletic team mates procured a carriage - a horse which they pulled themselves and they picked him up at the place where he had been living put him into this carriage and pulled it through the streets of Edinburgh to Waverly station and then there were hymns of farewell as the train pulled out with everyone singing in quite a crowd there so it was it was a great send-off for Eric and of course there are articles in the newspaper and magazines about his finally leaving Scotland and heading for China as Eric climbed onto the train his last words were Christ for the world for the world needs Christ Eric took up his post as chemistry teacher and overseer of sports at Tianjin where he was loved by students and faculty alike as in Britain Eric continued to be active in making the gospel known by organising Bible studies preaching and taking advantage of sports activities to share his faith a few years later he met someone who would change his life in a very big way about a year after Eric arrived in China the Mackenzie family returned from their furlough year in Canada and bringing with them Florence it was about 15 years old at that time and over the next few years an attraction developed between Eric and Florence she was 10 years younger than Eric was so it wasn't like he could just sort of ask her out and but within the missionary community the nice thing was that there were a lot of group activities where people work together so it was a natural time to to get to know each other and she used to take piano lessons from mantich which is my father's sister and Easter and he was also he taught Sunday school so they came in contact they're funny were wonderful funny parts was that time every time she was there for her music lesson he used to come home for tea I think one of the defining times was when my mother was acting in a Sunday school play and it caused her some real passion you know and she she winds was a lively person and so when she played that part Eric said to her my father sent her forints I didn't know you had all that passion in you and I think that really piqued his interest and finally in 1929 he proposed to Florence she was flabbergasted at first but overjoyed and she agreed their engagement was not announced officially until about six months later but another part of that equation was that her father insisted that she get an education after high school before she could marry Eric so she left for nurses training in Canada and they were apart for the next four years except for brief meetings after their marriage in 1934 Eric and Florence had two daughters were born in China Patricia and Heather and their life was a source of great joy for Eric who had missed living in a family home during his boyhood years well I was I was very young I was only six the last time I saw but I think because the years were so there were war years you know they were very traumatic and I remember him as being steady fair lots of fun and I remember in the little race that we had father and daughter and so we both read we both run he ran and then I had to had to give the baton to me a something like that and I waited for other people to catch up as then and he said no no you it must be fair you know you run you you do your best you run your fastest but you don't knock anybody else down for it you have to be fair but you do your very best always do you pass yeah in 1937 he agreed to leave teaching and to serve as a rural evangelist back at chou-heung which was the first place that he had lived with his parents as a baby in China things were very uncertain at that time the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 changed everything because there were rival armies and factions government army and the Communist army and warlords competing for territory and Erich never knew who or what he would run into on his travels as a rural evangelist and pastor during those two years he was working in Xiao Zhang Eric returned to Scotland twice on furloughs they hoped to spend some time in Canada and then go to Scotland together but the beginning of submarine warfare by the Germans in 1939 created a very unsafe situation and so for the first few months Eric went to Scotland alone and then Florence and the girls joined him after that for a time we left somewhere in the UK I don't know where where the port was in a convoy and we had an escort and then in the middle of the night the escort left us and the convoy went on and we actually three ships in our bow in our convoy went down or torpedoed and we spent a lot of time just standing on the decks with our life jackets on and all the time Heather and I never felt frightened you know our parents were very good about keeping us feeling secure with them and our ship was actually hit by a torpedo and it was a dud and you know to this day I can still hear all of a sudden the motors going and just we just spread out and there we were early in 1941 the situation in China was becoming more and more unstable the war in Europe was raging London was being bombed nightly by the German Luftwaffe during the Blitz Hitler was steamrolling across Europe seemingly unstoppable and Japan was increasing its control over North China and other parts of Asia and then my mother found out she wasn't pregnant with a third child and this made well it was a dilemma you know what to do theydo finally decided that my mother and we two girls would go back to Canada and she would have the baby and wait for him and he because he said I can't I can't leave my people here you know you're working with them you're that's your job that's your responsibility and we would be safe in Canada and he couldn't just run away and leave them so he stayed last time I saw him he took mother and Heather and I to the ship in Japan we got on the tricking on the ship and my mother was expecting Lorene so he said Patricia I want you to be grown up and look after your mother until I get back and you know and this so then you think well I have to be grown-up and I have to do this and you do it you know it's expected and you don't think anything about it they thought that maybe at the outside they might be apart for a year and then he would come home but of course that all changed with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 never heard a thing for nine months never heard and my mother it was extremely harsh she was very young she was telling her twenties and but never did she ever think that she wouldn't see him again you know except maybe when my father and her were sitting by the banks of Loch Lomond saying I'll take the high road table [Music] me and my true love will never meet so but you know he was so vital so strong she thought if anybody can survive he will before that time the people living in North China were considered foreign nationals by the Japanese after Pearl Harbor they were considered enemy nationals when the United States declared war on Japan and they were confined to this concessions and the part of tents in where they lived and they were not free to travel they were not free to leave and eventually that led the Japanese to move these people into internment camps simply as a matter of control they were called internment they were called civilian assembly centers which was a polite term for prison camp they were not tortured they were not harmed but it was a very difficult situation they were placed inside a compound they couldn't leave they had the basic necessities of life provided to them and then they had to figure out how to put it all together [Music] the people in these camps were an incredible mixture and cross-section of life because there weren't just missionaries in North China there were business people there were entertainers there were tourists there were travelers there were people who were very devout Christians and there were opium addicts they had to cooperate with each other they had to pull together they people who had been high-ranking executives with multinational companies now had to chop vegetables in the kitchen other people had to pump water to carry coal because their very existence depended on it I was about 14 Japanese police came and the army and put barricades around our school property and it was something that grew slowly they came through our school property pretty rough you know not hurting anybody but helping themselves to this and that and started measuring up everything and it was told us that we'd be going into Britain camp later we became enemy nationals overnight it was on Monday morning there because what others had the dateline it wasn't the Sunday but children came back from school a day or so afterwards the Japanese soldiers arrived at the compound took over the compound sent the Chinese students back home sent them out of the compound sealed off the compound enquired made interrogated us four see what we were what we're doing and so on searched the place for weapons and then set up a regime within the compound with guards at the gates that we so that we were not able to move around without of the Japanese the camp had been originally a present American Presbyterian mission compound it was a large compound which was a middle school a hospital had quite a good hospital building and it had a quite a good sized Church there with many rooms for four students they were small nine by twelve room nine feet by 12 feet rooms that families were put in and large dormitories with what I've been classrooms were used for for others were all bedded together unfortunately between the time of Pearl Harbor and the Presbyterian mission people who had been running it had gone and the time that we arrived it had been used as an army barracks by the Japanese who had just trashed the place and so most of the furniture most of the cooking equipment and so on within a very bad state most prominently was the state of the sewage and the sewers had all become blocked up and within two or three days of our arrival there in fact they overflowed suddenly instead of just a few hundred troops there were 1,800 people and so ways had to be found of dealing with it oddly enough the people who set about dealing with in a very practical way without asking for any decision on the part of any kind of authority were a group of Roman Catholic priests Roman Catholic fathers who had been taken out of their monasteries and sent to camp and they set about digging trenches and doing all that was necessary to make the sewerage system work it was a very large camp with a variety of types of people all ages from babies to 80 and 90 year old people men nationalities and we kept life going by doing chores there was a labor department that gave us jobs that we had to do as our contribution to the community life I was working in a kitchen feeding 700 people there were 1500 people in the camp they were in three different kitchens and I had to stir a big cauldron with bread porridge bread soup everything just thought about food all the time and so you're hungry a lot of the time I remember all my teeth every one of my teeth was loose by the time at the end but at the same time we we accepted it as you know just part of life in the camp equation where Eric little was there were families of course many people had their children with them and after a few months there was a group of mostly Canadians that were repatriated they got to go home because they were part of a prisoner exchange and they were replaced in the camp by a group of 300 children and teenagers from the China Inland Mission School at shifu most of these were children of missionary parents and they were separated from their parents because they had simply been at school a kind of a boarding school in China and so Eric really had a great deal of sympathy and compassion for these children and teenagers and he invested a lot of his time and work with them about the second day I was in camp somebody pointed this man out to me and said he ran for the Olympics this is the man who wouldn't run on a Sunday and then we knew who he was and he was very friendly he was all over the camp cheering people up and asking questions and he was particularly good to the chief ooh scholars whom he knew was separated from their parents by many provinces and he himself was missing his family say he was very very good to the chief of children I was one I had heard him as someone being a far-off kind of a star somewhere up there one that I would never meet but it was just a name to country with to find him it suddenly that I was living alongside him and later very shortly after was living in the same dormitory with him across the other side of the the dormitory was it took some getting used to but well he was a man of prayer and a man of commitment to a Christian faith little and several others shared quiet times together in the morning unburden themselves to each other discuss passages of the scriptures Eric continued his quiet times in camp in very crowded conditions they they didn't have private rooms especially among single people there would probably be at least four to six people to a room and Eric would get up early in the morning and have a small peanut oil lamp which he would liked and one of his roommates Joe Cottrill noticed him getting up early and lighting this lamp to read his Bible and have a time of Prayer and Joe was used to doing that so they became sort of silent quiet time mates each morning together it was that experience that I looked back upon as being one that kept me on an even keel during the days in internment Eric had a firm foundation in his not only his knowledge of the Bible but his appreciation his attitude to Bible teaching Eric's attitude in much of what he said was not the kind of hot gospel attitude which would go out and ask people if they were saved but it was that the ultimate aim of preaching of reading the Bible of prayer was to bring about a change within oneself an internal change a change in one's attitude to God in one's attitude to other people the one word that comes out from much of what Eric said and what came over time and time again is that simple Christian word love later on I was able to decided describe him as the most christ-like man I've ever met not that he was christ-like in a kind of niche but the same way that Jesus Christ was a person of the world he lived the kind of life that everyone else lived so did Eric but there was this added point that he loved everyone he sought to love everyone and so to show the love of God to everyone he was very good with teenage Bible studies I I remember Steven Metcalfe talking about that he had the story Bible studies on the sermon of them on the mountain how he brought that out so so clearly to be applicable to now as teenagers in a Japanese internment camp he was not a classical kind of preacher where in in school sermons should have a beginning and ending and three points or four points many illustrations and so on instead Eric talks were talks as though he were talking to you individually just speaking of problems he met with and how he approached God in prayer in his life in his Bible reading to come through those situations and how in all situations we are seeking to bring the gospel of God's love to all people as I say it was as it were a talk Ralph the Sun that's what I mean in technical terms there was not a good preacher but everyone loved to listen to him because he was speaking to people at the level they could understand and with an authority one thought that came from alive lived in contact with God Dean Huber now put up he put up a we made it up would a sign on the on the doorway of their dorm and it said uncle Eric is and it was in or out and Eric had to if we were going out he'd slide it across to say out so that they were bothered by lots of say knocking on the doors is uncle Eric here if we wanted to talk about it and then we went to uncle Eric to talk about it I mean problems of teenage living and I guess he was always a verse among the missionary community adults were always known as aunt and uncle it was just the way missionaries addressed the the people at the adults in their lives in the case of Eric when they called him uncle Eric it probably became more than just a standard term because he was available to talk with the teenagers he was teaching chemistry because school went on and they didn't quit having school they just found people who could teach so he was involved with them and they really had no place for classrooms but tutoring individually and in small groups he refereed sports games he helped organize athletic activities he gave talks to the group and he was always repairing the equipment during the evening hours after its being broken during the games of the day there's a story that's told about Eric observing a group of Stu who were I don't know playing field hockey or or some sports on a Sunday afternoon and there was no one to referee the games and it sort of disintegrated into a conflict and a fight among them and even though Eric had very strong convictions about keeping the Sabbath he agreed to referee their games on Sunday afternoon simply because he felt that this was a need that existed in a way that he should help and encourage them and he came to the feeling that it was the Christian the christ-like thing to do to let them play with the equipment and to be with them you know not in church time or anything but to be with them the times he could because it was more christ-like to do it than to to do the letter of the law and let them run amuck by themselves so he did change on that and for me that was very interesting because it was the one thing of course everybody remembers about their aching but his his Christian faith was very pertinent to the time and the place and now how do we live Christ now in our situation I think the main problem was how long are we going to be here this is going to go on for a long time and he would come around and assure us that God had everything into control it was the biggest camp in China you know and really they left us to run ourselves unless you you know really cross sort of them you weren't likely to get a bad time if you're caught in the black market you were locked up for perhaps a week or two there were mothers with babies needing eggs for their children and so on and we our main food was bread and so this Catholic priest who went to Peking later he did a lot of work over the over the fence and they brought it through the electrified wires and then we had these Chinese coolies who brought in the who came in and cleared the night soil and they came with messages stuffed up their nose which told us about the war coming our way and as they went past a certain rubbish dump they used to blow their nose into the rubbish dump only two people knew about it and afterwards they'd go out and pick up the silk and then it would go up on the notice board to say the rumor for today is that Okinawa's for North Saipan something like that you see and the Japanese was certain that we had radio somewhere and they're always searching would never found it because we didn't but that's how the news came in to us because they had no textbooks in camp for the school eric created a chemistry textbook from memory and he wrote out different experiments and pictures and diagrams of a certain kind of apparatus and said if you take this substance and add this substance there will be a reaction describe what happens and so all of their laboratory work was by way of imagination but it's an amazing book when you look at it it's just all of these various experiments and pictures and diagrams and all created out of his head in order to help these students learn their chemistry yeah he was desperately busy and he did a lot of things like carrying coal for this person that person who couldn't carry coal he just one of these people who you know some people see what needs to be done and did it that was the type of man he was he was discussing whether you really could love that Japanese Garcia and the Japanese is he was it really practical and we discussed it now remember it was Matthew five and the last verses be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect and we decided that it was a goal to be aim down to love your enemies and he smiled and he said I thought so too but he said then I realized that it says love your enemies pray for those who despitefully use you and he said well we spend a lot of time praying for the people we liked and we spend no time at all praying for the people we don't like and he challenged us to pray for the Japanese he said I get up every day and pray for the Japanese and he you know challenged us I started praying for the Japanese at that time that was where my interest in Japan things started and my shoes have worn out and one day he came over to me he had I forget when they're wrapped up in a cloth of what but he said to me Steve are seen you have no shoes and it's winter and he said perhaps you can use these for two or three weeks you get about two three weeks wear out of them and just with a nod he pushed them into my hand so I opened him up there his running shoes but he didn't they weren't spikes in her but then his running shoes and death wasn't till later that I really thought well those shoes had a lot of significance in his mind but then right he had tied them up with string and tied the sat soles up and so on put a lot of work into it just to give them to me toward the end of 1944 one of Eric's roommates told me that he began to notice that Eric's speech was a little bit slower he wasn't quite as sharp in his exchange his humerus exchange and the repartee that they had enjoyed before and then Eric became started complaining about these severe headaches that he would was having and I know Eric worked on the pump for a while they had to pump all the water from well and he would you know you'd come up and then down and up and then down just for three hours at a time pumping the water for the camp and I remember actually when he felt that his memory was going and he told me that the in order to stimulate his memory he had a book he used to memorize long person's of Scripture whole chapters of Scripture but he decided he would learn the last three chapters of A Tale of Two Cities prose you know where where the one man stands in for the other man and goes to the guillotine instead of the man with a family and he says it is a far far better thing I do than ever I have done before and so he learned those last three chapters of A Tale of Two Cities and he learned it on when he was working on the pump he would come up and the book was on the ground so when he went down with the handles he would read a line and come back and say it and learn the whole of the three chapters because he felt it he felt his memory was going in fact he was Anna buckin would be nursing missionary no nursing someone in Peking who had died and that she was brought into camp after that and one of her early remarks was that Eric seems to be slowing down but we didn't pay much attention to that because so we all slowing down our intake of food was getting less and less I mean any buckin was a a sprightly little Scots woman with a lot of courage who had served as a nurse in China for many years and she was a very independent opinionated young woman with gray of great courage who served in many difficult situations and she found herself sent to Asia and camp at one point she had known Eric and Rob and she'd actually worked with Rob at at the Xiao Zhang Hospital for a time they first of all thought that it was nervous exhaustion he was involved with the young people who's involved it was very busy in running sports activities of young people and they one point suggested that he should give that up and into the bakery to in it get involved in much more physical activities rather than ones that kept him alert to the needs of other people and contact with other people on a day-to-day basis and so he won't we began to notice these changes in him but at the turn of the year he began to find difficulty in walking and lost the use of not completely lost the use of his limbs but found it difficult to walk up and down the dolma tree there and finally he went into the hospital he weren't quite sure what was going on they thought it might be some kind of exhaustion a slight nervous breakdown he got a little bit better in hospital for a while and was out but then I had to go back in and the doctors began to suspect that it could be a brain tumor but they had no x-ray equipment in order to verify it visiting hours were at 11:00 o'clock and I had my book the book he wrote with me I'd had my quiet time that morning and I just went to see him in fact he has a Red Cross letter to his wife and it says Joyce strengths has been great of great help to me bringing me all the news and so I used to go every day and tell him what was going on in the camp and also he we'd talk about what I had read and I was sitting beside our expen we were talking and we were talking about the 3rd chapter in his book that he had written about the surrender of our will to the will of God so that in everything we did in our attitudes it was not what we wanted to do and what we felt like doing but what God wanted us to do and to surrender that that will that we all have to him and we were talking about that and he he started to say his surrender he said Saran Suren and then his head went back Joyce ran to get the nurse aunty buckin who in her way sort of criticized Joyce for visiting him she shouldn't have been here anyway and of course Joyce was very upset and I was I just panicked and I ran out and found any bucket misspoken three teenagers and I called her and she she she said yes shouldn't have been in there anyway she said to me because it was before visiting hours it was just before 11:00 but she came in and she pulled the curtains around his bed and then she came out and she I was crying and she shook me and said what did he say what did he say and I said he said surrender and she said all the people in the camp were devastated by Erik little death he was one of the few people who bridged the gap between the business community and the missionary community they were two different groups that didn't have a lot of appreciation for each other the business community often looked on the missionaries as being separate and judgmental and the missionaries looked at the business community as being exploiting the Chinese for their own ends and that kind of things so they didn't get along very well but Eric was was sort of beyond that or above it and he moved freely among both groups it was a cold day it had been snowing I was at the door when they when I was given the job of helping to carry the coffin down to the cemetery and the church had been crowded with people of all kinds Christian and non-christian I remember walking back absolutely shattered was just it was really a shattering experience to feel that a man like this nothing that was expected happened as that word yeah he was only 43 years older is gone I was pretty depressed about that whole thing and it was due after that that I talked about that if I survived in the prison camp I'd go to Japan as a mission right the day after he died when the news went around the camp one found grown men who had I don't think they shed a tear the last 50 years were in tears at his death because he was known not because of his Olympic prowess but because he was Eric he was the kind of person it was a friend to everyone and his his funeral bore that out the church wouldn't hold all the people but church was fall and then the route from the church to the to the graveyard in the Japanese part of the compound I was lined with the camp and the whole camp closed down and it was a very very moving occasion my dad and Annie buckin took me to this it was a little shed that Annie had laid him out where he loved me and I remember seeing him there very peaceful and I remember thinking he's not here he's just not yeah and I it was comforting in a way because I knew he had gone to be with the Lord he loved to well I believe one man who was not a Christian said of Eric that Jesus Christ used to live in our camp but he died yesterday and I think at that point the thoughts of many people were of course with his wife and three children back in Canada who weren't to hear about it for several months we lived in Toronto at the time and I was just a little girl whereas in the kitchen said to my mother I said mother you look so beautiful today if she wasn't she was lovely and she and I said but you look so different she's just she was just glowing and she said I know what Tricia I think your father's coming home she said because I can feel him I felt it for at least I don't know how long was about a week she said I feel I'm right here and I feel if I turn my head a little quicker I will see him and he's saying to me it's all right it's all right and that was about just about a week before she got the letter a telegram came to somebody else and they IRA and to say that he was dead and he had died in February I mean she just couldn't believe it but she said you know he was telling was there he was telling me it's all right yeah and and the day that we got the the letter I had been at a race at school and hither know really good at running you know so he just like to be like Daddy and run fast and and so I came rare roaring in 2000 guess what guess what I won this and one Matt and everything was crying and I just didn't see anybody around the doors were closed and and that's when my mother and we three girls had a little sort of apartment up on the third floor two bedrooms that's where there's for our special places and that's where she told us that he had died so you know the whole world changed them Horace his youngest daughter Maureen who had been born in Canada and had never seen her father would never see her father and never know him and even Heather who had just really baby memories of him and for Patricia suddenly all that they had been hoping for and anticipating and the war was really beginning to come to an end it was almost the time of VE Day Victory in Europe and then there was hope that it would soon be over and they would be reunited and and then this came and it was just one of those things that leaves you reeling for a good bit of time we had a notice on the board the rumor for today is that the Americans American b-29 has dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima this was a lot of detail in that to see everybody was talking about it Hiroshima you know they knew that detail and that it was a b-29 we'd never heard him b-29 an atomic bomb there was something you know we'd never heard about and so on but and that the Emperor had announced that the war was over that was on August the 15th nothing and under 16 on the night of the 15th we demonstrated outside that calm dense grounds and real shouting is the war over and he came out and in very broken English he said I don't know if the war is over or not we were used to Japanese planes we knew them well near the sound of them but this one we didn't know the sound of and it was quite high up and it was circled round and that came down lower over the camp and we looked up at it it seems to me that all 1,800 people did it it say that we looked up and saw the stars and stripes on the underside of the wing I will never forget I can see it to this day and everybody went mad they just started crying and they all came running out into the little streets and alleys of the camp and they the airplane went and pulled higher and we thought it was going away and people who weeping and all of suddenly Dorothy undercarriage opened and seven little pups dropped out when we said we thought the dropping mail you know we had had million years and all of a sudden one of the bundles kicked his legs like that and everybody said they're men and these seven men hadn't had landed they landed outside the camp we had heard a lot of Japanese planes they were a bit Rocky and when this one came it was a purring with great pleasure to us we all went away to one of this seven then it was a former scholar of the chief of schools we were very proud of it get pulled strings to release us the whole chemists dreamed out through the gate past the guards protested at first but then prudently went into the guardhouse they must have known that war was over nearly over and they put down their their arms came out to watch the fun but these people ragged people just screamed out and went into the fields and picked these men up on their shoulders and brought them in on their shoulders when the war came to an end we had arranged to meet and play the various national anthems of the other nationalities and I rush back from my trombone join them played with them while they were carrying the American officers into the camp who are waiting outside expecting the Japanese to put up a fight my dad meanwhile had rushed about trying to find his band you know in all different parts of the camp my dad got them all together they stood near the wall near the big gate where they were babies all the rest of them had streamed out to get these people and as they came in with them on their shoulders my dad's band was playing and playing all sorts of things like happy days are here again and the national anthems and they went into thee Stars and Stripes and American slipped off the shoulders of these of these raggedy prisoners and he looted [Music] and then Florence had to begin to start figuring out how they would live as a family and she decided to return to nursing so she could support herself and her girls and try to order her schedule so that she could be there during the times of the day when when they needed her she was the same principals lots of fun very fair lucky we were so fortunate to have the parents we did we really were I think that one of the gifts that they gave us was those were war years and my father died in a prisoner market and it would have been very easy for lots of widows to blame you know the country and so that you the the hatred goes on it doesn't dissipate it and but we never felt any anger or against the Japanese at all no that was a quip that was a great gift that she gave us it was it was the time that was war and you have to forgive you just had to and get on with it and so we did and my father's Fame never affected us at all because we grew up in Canada and we were just regular people and the end of the war there were lots of children who didn't have their fathers they went back into nursing and we just had to pull together and we did pull together very well you know wherever even when we were little you always felt that God was walking and he wasn't up there very way you think he was right there with you and you can life is easier I'm not saying that you get any fewer problems because you do get the problems and you get some horrible problems and gets horrible things tossed at you but there you know you've had ground into you that you have something stronger inside that will help you through that help you through the times patricia perhaps more than the other two girls I think was aware of the lack of having their father in their lives as they grew up and because Patricia was the oldest and probably felt a responsibility and and often wished that their father could have been there when times were difficult and probably had a lot of doubts about why God would let something like that happen I must say it at times has children reason why wasn't you with us you know why wasn't he there because sometimes as a child I would I would you know close my eyes and I would walk in that camp and I would look for him and I would talk to him but it's funny that about the six months before he died or a few months before I'd walk in that camp and I couldn't find him [Music] it's just one of these children's things you know but and it wasn't until the years later that I found out I think there maybe was a reason that he stayed in that camp I have met a lot of the children the ring again same age as we were and they were put in the camp without their parents you know we were safe and these children did not have parents and they have done most of them have done very well and he made a great influence in the steadiness of their of their lives there so in that sense you know God's hand was there he could have gone with him and experienced having his children around him but God had a purpose in all this I'm sure you know the story of he was traveling from tents into Xiao Jiang and he saw he's heard of a Chinese man lying on the steps of a Chinese temple and the Japanese thought they had killed him but he had a cut in his in his neck and a little got him onto a cart and they pushed him to the hospital and this man stayed with a missionary family and he turned out to be an artist and he gave them a picture of some flowers and his life was greatly influenced by this kindness and know through talking to individuals who knew him that that commitment to them run very very deep and had a tremendous impact on them I remember hearing for instance Stephen may calf speaking about his encounters with Eric Lidell and there were long-term encounters when he was a young lad with no pions in the internment camp who received guidance from from this man in a very real way he spoke about his his struggles with hatred for the Japanese too but imprisoning em another Erik's unfeeling commitment to believing that we should love our enemy and out of that you know just the wonder of Steven maqams make house call to minister to the Japanese as a missionary after the wall I mean there's something totally wonderful about that there's something wonderful about the level and the depth of care that Steven maker experienced from Erik little that would allow that kind of influence to be the air on my 19th birthday that's April 44 yeah before the end of the war I had a time of Prayer just near the hospital and I said to God if you'll save my life I'll serve you all my life in the ministry that's how I came I was at that spot again this summer on one side of me was the hospital where little had died behind me was a spot where my friend had been an executed waiting for roll call and where our standing was the spot where I had made this promise to God which I had kept in my work in Africa and Zimbabwe and South Africa enric little stand for God while he may not have realized that at the time would have far-reaching results my brother sent me a booklets actually this booklet here on edit little he sent me this booklet and it was very the powerful effect on me and that's how I came to write the articles in the Athletics weekly which were used by the writer of the screenplay of Chariots of Fire and which led to my own involvement in that particular project I think Sir David Putnam was visiting someone in Los Angeles and was perhaps not feeling well for a day or so and just picked up a book to read and was reading about the 1924 Olympics and saw something about Harold Abraham's and winning the hundred meters and and then perhaps a bit about Eric little and not running on Sunday and this captured his imagination and he began to investigate it and that was the genesis of the film Chariots of Fire which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1981 I think of one young woman a beautiful young Japanese lady who came to visit the the center as a youngster she had been watching Chariots of Fire and had actually converted to Christianity because of the influence the Eric little had on her her life [Music] Eric was the product of the input of many people his parents their interest in him their prayers their love for him even though they felt that what God had called them to do as missionaries required this sacrifice of separation for much of their lives his teachers at alton college who inspired him in many different ways eric was greatly influenced by his brother Rob and then of course Florence brought a great joy to him a great completion to his life a home and a family that he'd not known when he was growing up so there's a lot of things that go into the making of every person he just seemed to turn his back on potential advantage Fame and so on but his first concern was the kingdom of God and not a temporal Kingdom for me it was the the biggest awaken the one that that guided my life most because he he made Christ's life so relevant to you know and made it feel like we who followed Christ must do what he has asked us to do where we are in in the situation we are in you know you don't get a dispensation because you're in the camp if it's only by telling and people feel that they've been filled in some way when the life doesn't match up but Eric littles life as far as I can see through all of the readings through all of the contacts that I've had with people who actually knew and he actually left the life in researching and writing the biography Eric little pure gold I spent a lot of time with Eric over a period of about four years I think the thing that impressed me well one thing was a comment by his niece who when she was trying to describe him paused for a minute and said well he was just so ordinary he was not a flashy person in life he was methodical he was a plotter he was shy he was reserved now he had a twinkle in his eye and a mischievous part of his personality but the only place he was really fast was on the track but he was genuine and there were not two Eric littles there was only one he was not one person in public and a different person in private what you saw was what you got anytime anywhere and he was sincere he and he often talked to children in Sunday school about the word sincere and about its Latin origin meaning without wax and he would tell them the story of how in ancient times dishonest sculptors if they had a piece of marble that was flawed or had a crack would put wax in it and then polish it so that the buyer would not be aware of it but of course at some point the wax would melt or crack and break and then they would be aware that they had been cheated and so he said the two words without wax combined to be our modern word sincere and we are to be genuine true honest integrity he was a person of integrity and people appreciated that about him in the Olympics and with his stand about not running on Sunday and he was unselfish he was a servant of other people and that's what he was all about and again I think that that remark to me was so telling that he lived better than he preached because so many times those of us who communicate and work in fields where we talk or write or make films are always worried about our presentation about what we say whereas really the the thing God is concerned about I think is how we live and who's not he was a very humble man he didn't think I don't think he could any things how everybody should be you know it was his faith the way he worked doesn't say it I'm this way and you should be this way talking about his faith was a simple personal thing and I think he was a very non-judgmental everybody's famous for themselves - is this like not running under Sunday you wouldn't do it if somebody else wanted to run on Sunday that it wasn't for him to say no that was purely his own way it was and that's the way he was phrased that was his faith and he wasn't going to altar just for a goal [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Vision Video

Views: 24,192

Rating: 4.8847008 out of 5

Keywords: Christian Videos, Christian Films, Christian Movies, Religious Movies, Films, Movies, Entertainment, Eric Liddel, Chariots of Fire, 1924 Olympics, World war 2, World War II, China, Missionary, Missionaries, Athlete, Sports, David McCasland, Patricia Russell, Rev. John Keddie, Eric Liddell | Champion of Conviction (2008) | Full Movie

Id: poE9trD-3CQ

Length: 100min 20sec (6020 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 09 2020