Eric Liddell: Pure Gold by David McCasland

Author:David McCasland [McCasland, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography
Publisher: Discovery House Publishers
Published: 2010-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

No matter how demanding his schedule, Eric always found time to write to Flo. Their letters crisscrossed the Atlantic, filled with the news of their lives. Rob and his family were hoping to arrive in Scotland in time for Jenny’s marriage to Dr. Charles Somerville on April 20. Eric’s father was very involved at Morningside Congregational Church and seemed to be doing well. His mother was much the same, a bit too serious and burdened for her own good. He kept hoping that his speaking schedule would ease, but there was no sign of it.

Flo had missed a week of training in February due to a terrible cold. Her grades were satisfactory, with commendations for good attitude and willingness to work. Her hours were still long, the work demanding, and the behavior of patients during night duty often bizarre. Her mind and spirit were holding up, but her body was ready to quit. She expected her parents and the younger children home on furlough in early summer. Betty Thomson, her best friend from China, planned to enter nurse’s training the next autumn.

But beyond the news, each letter affirmed their love and longing for each other. Each exam taken, each deputation meeting completed, brought them closer to the day when they would be together again.

By February, Eric was drained by the demands of his theological study and speaking schedule. Beyond his weariness of body and mind, there seemed to be an ill-defined spiritual unrest as well. He had no peace, no stillness of soul. Why must it be so hard? he wondered. If he lacked the sustaining power in his own homeland, where people congratulated him for being a Christian, how could he hope to return to China and serve effectively?

In the midst of his exhaustion, a member of the Oxford Group spoke at an informal gathering in his parents’ home. During the meeting, as the speaker focused on the need for complete surrender to God each day, Eric felt his weariness begin to melt away. He knew that the spiritual power he needed would not and could not come from himself. The text from Acts, “But you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire,” echoed in his mind.

Six years earlier, he had walked and talked with Loudon Hamilton in Galashiels when the Oxford Group movement had just begun. Now it had become the source of spiritual renewal and life-changing power for multiplied thousands of people around the world. Their practical approach to Bible study was: “Read accurately, interpret honestly, apply drastically.” One Group member noted that Christianity became practical and vibrant as “absolute standards of honesty and unselfishness were applied not to some pleasant pipe-dream of the sweet by-and-by, but to details of the nasty now-and-now.”

Stuart Sanderson and his wife, Bina, understood the freedom and power of following God’s guidance, whatever the cost. A lifelong resident of Galashiels, Stuart had taken over his family’s woolen manufacturing business when his only brother was killed in the Great War.

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