Praying Hyde

Part I

by

Francis A. McGaw

John Hyde, "The Apostle of Prayer," as he was often called, was reared in a home where Jesus was an abiding guest, and where the dwellers in that home breathed an atmosphere of prayer.

I was well acquainted with John's father, Smith Harris Hyde, D.D., during the seventeen years he was pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Carthage, Illinois. Dr. Herrick Johnson, of Chicago, shortly before he died, wrote these words:

Hyde's father was of rare proportion and balance, a healthful soul, genial and virile, firm of conviction, of good scholarly attainment, of abundant cheer, and bent on doing for God to the best of his ability.

Personally I knew him in his home to be a courteous, loving husband. I knew him to be a firm, yet sympathetic father, commanding his household after him. I knew the sweet-spirited, gentle, music loving, Christ-like Mrs. Hyde. I knew each one of the three boys and three girls who grew up in that home. Often I have eaten at their table. Twice I have been with the family when the crepe was on the door; once when Mrs. Hyde was taken away, and again when dear John's body was brought home and lovingly laid to rest in Moss Ridge Cemetery. Often I have kneeled with them, and have, as a young minister, been strangely moved when dear Dr. Hyde poured out his heart to God as he prayed at the family altar. I knew him in his church and in the Presbyterial meetings. He was a noble man of God. Under God, his congregation was built up, and he was a leader among his ministerial brethren. 

I have frequently heard Dr. Hyde pray the Lord of the harvest to thrust out laborers into His harvest. He would pray this prayer both at the family altar and from his pulpit. It is therefore no strange thing that God called two of his sons into the Gospel ministry, and one of his daughters for a time into active Christian work. Dr. Hyde magnified his office, and rejoiced to give his sons up to a life of hardship and trial.

I read in "Far North in India" [about 1930] the statement by a former missionary in India, Dr. W. B. Anderson, that a hundred million people in India to-day have not heard of Jesus Christ, and as things are now have not the remotest chance to hear about Him. There are other millions in Africa and other countries in the same Christless ignorance. Why is it so?

Because prayer closets are deserted, family altars art broken down, and pulpit prayers are formal and dead!

Bible schools and seminaries can never supply the workers needed. My own sainted mother prayed as a young girl that the doors of the heathen countries might be opened. Afterwards as the mother of ten children (eight of whom grew to manhood and womanhood), she prayed for laborers to enter these open doors, and God sent one of her sons to India and two of her daughters to China.

Grandmother Lois and mother Eunice prayed, and when the Great Apostle to the Gentiles was about to take his departure he could lay his hands on son Timothy and commission him to "Preach the Word!"

John Hyde was an answer to prayer, and when in other years he prayed in India, God raised up scores of native workers in answer to his prayers. The Great Head of the Church has provided one method for securing laborers. He said, ""The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray . . ." (Matthew 9:37-38, NKJV).

In the Tabernacle of Moses there was one room so sacred that only one man of all the thousands of Israel was ever permitted to enter it; and he on one day only of all the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. That room was the Holy of Holies. The place where John Hyde met God was holy ground. The scenes of his life are too sacred for common eyes. I shrink from placing them before the public.

But when I remember Jacob at the brook, Elijah on Cannel, Paul in his agony for Israel, and especially the Ian in the Garden, then I am impressed by the Spirit of God that the experiences of this "Man of God" should be published for the learning and admonition of thousands. So we take our stand near the prayer closet of John Hyde, and are permitted to hear the sighing and the groaning, and to see the tears coursing down his face, to see his frame weakened by foodless days and sleepless nights, shaken with sobs as he pleads, "O God, give me souls or I die!"

Some of his class-mates in the M'Cormick Seminary have kindly lifted up the curtain and allowed us to see something of the spirit which possessed the students of that Seminary during the year 1892, when John Hyde was one of the students. Dr. Herrick Johnson called that class "The Missionary Class of M'Cormick Seminary. " Hyde's beloved friend and fellow student—Burton A. Konkle—says: "Out of forty-six students in that class twenty-six decided for the foreign field. Hyde of India was our ‘man of prayer.' Lee of Korea has been called ‘The Apostle of Korea.' Foster our `man of suffering,' whose beautiful life influenced us all. They were more to me than my own brother, and I never think of them but with a glow of thankfulness."

J. F. Young, once Pastor at Hyde's home, said: "I think Konkle is right when he says that Hyde made little impression on any of us (his fellow students), the first year in the seminary, and I rather doubt whether he did the second-he was just one of us, and we did not think much about him. It was during the senior year after the death of his brother Edmund-his eldest brother who was in the Seminary and was a student volunteer for the foreign field-that his fellow-students realized that he was not an ordinary young man. Hyde was greatly impressed by his brother's death, and a great struggle took place as to where his life should be lived. At last he surrendered, and in substance said: "I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord. " The result was a change in his own life, and we began to count it a pleasure to go for a walk with him.

His friend, Mr. Konkle, describes him thus:

During the senior year, when there was a growing interest in foreign missions in our class, Hyde came to my room about eleven o'clock one night and said he wanted all the `arguments' I had for the foreign field. We sat then for some moments in silence, and then I told him that he knew as much about the foreign field as I did; that I didn't believe it was argument that he needed, and that I thought the way for him to settle it was to lay it before our Father and stay until He decided for him: We sat in silence a while longer, and, saying he believed I was right, he rose and bade me good night. The next morning as I was going up the chapel steps, I felt a hand on my arm, and looking back I saw John's face radiant with a new vision. 'It's settled, Konkle,' said he, and I didn't need to be told how. 

From that day he grew in power rapidly until, I think we would all agree, he was easily the most powerful single instrument for the foreign field in the Seminary. He prayed for men individually, and then sought them out, and his soul seemed aflame. Prayer was his pathway to greater things, and it became the characteristic of his whole life and work, because it was his peculiar power. He was a torch of prayer, that carried light and warmth. We are only beginning to appreciate the beauty and glory of his life.

One can see, therefore, how the choice of a field would be to him a mere incident compared to steps in progress, in insight into the Truth, and consequent ink consecration. During that senior year, as organizer of missions, I had appointed him Librarian of the Home Mission Committee, to which field he had, up to that time, seemed most inclined. 

After he had decided for foreign work, he became restive at giving his time to the home field so much, and came to me asking if I didn't think he should be relieved from it. He knew I was pledged to the foreign field, and yet was organizer of our whole city mission work. So I looked at him with a twinkle in my eye, and asked him if he thought I should be relieved of my work for city missions. He colored a little, smiled with acquiescence, and said, 'I knew you would say that.' He saw that our principle, The field is the world, was one which we could not weaken in our Seminary outlook at least.

One of our class-mates has spent over thirty years in Korea, and built up sixty-seven churches, and his decision to go abroad was due to Hyde's influence as an instrument.

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