The Olympian Who Ran Toward an Unseen Country

In 1924, Eric Liddell stood on the Olympic podium in Paris with a gold medal around his neck. The whole of Scotland celebrated him. Newspapers called him the fastest man in the British Empire. Every door of comfort and celebrity swung wide open before him. He walked away from all of it. Within a year, Liddell boarded a ship for northern China to serve as a missionary teacher in Tianjin.…