Praying Hyde, Soul Searcher on India’s Roads

“Lord, where is my fourth soul for today?” prayed John Hyde riding third-class in an Indian railroad coach. He had been called by his mission board for a session with the leaders. Twice he passed by the station where he should have gotten off, because he was deep in conversation with a Hindu.

Two years before God had impressed John Hyde, better known as praying Hyde, that he should ask for one convert each day. The Lord enabled him to win more than a soul a day. The next year he had asked for two souls and the Father had given him more than two souls each day. This year he asked for four souls because his faith had been enlarged. From 1904 to 1909 through continued working and praying, God had given him thousands of souls.

On this day he had already won three souls and he was on quest of the fourth. He saw a Hindu sitting some distance away from him on the train. Praying Hyde walked up to the man and sat down by him. He opened the conversation with a point of common interest and then taught the Scriptures to the Hindu. By the time they arrived at Hyde’s destination for the third time, the Hindu was deeply interested in the Gospel of Christ and Praying Hyde could not let the man slip from his grasp. He rode on past his station again and meanwhile asked God for this soul. Before many hours the Hindu had accepted Christ as his Saviour. When this Hindu was safely inside the Christian fold, Hyde changed trains and went directly to the place of meeting. When he arrived at his destination, the committee had already transacted its business without him and had adjourned.

He received only a slight censor for his tardiness from his fellow missionaries for they realized that John Hyde was a searcher after souls on India’s highways. He was not content unless God gave him men and women who would yield their lives unto the Master.

Early in life, while in the McCormack Theological Seminary, Hyde had faced this question, “Shall I live the life of a Presbyterian minister or devote myself to missions?”

When God called him to India, Hyde yielded completely to the divine challenge. On his voyage to India Hyde opened a letter from a friend of his father, who wrote, “I’m praying for you to receive the power.”

At first John Hyde could not understand the meaning of the letter, for he had graduated from seminary and felt well equipped for missionary service. He read the letter again. He began to realize that this dear brother was praying for the unusual endowment and anointing of the Holy Spirit to rest upon him. Hyde lay on his face day after day, calling upon God for that anointing of divine power. After he arrived in India he spent the first ten years with out any indication of being an unusual man.

In the first few years of the twentieth century, John Hyde’s passion became that of a searcher for souls. He began praying all night, asking God to give him souls. When preparation was made for the Sailkot Convention in the Punjab John Hyde wondered if this would be only another convention without the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon him. He suggested to friends that they spend days praying for the Spirit’s baptism upon the congregation. As a consequence Hyde began an all night and then a ten to thirty day ministry of fasting and prayer.

“John Hyde, in the days of those Sailkot Conventions from 1901 to 1906, would go to his prayer room. He would remain there on his knees for twenty-four hours without moving from that position,” relates Mary Campbell, a missionary who was a contemporary of John Hyde and had spent more than fifty years in India. “Many times the Hindu lad who made up his bed found the bed unslept in for ten successive nights. John Hyde had lain on the floor calling upon God for the outpouring of the Spirit.”

Mary Campbell goes on to tell how Praying Hyde fasted thirty days and thirty nights during one of the Sailkot conventions, beseeching God for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. At the end of those thirty days he stepped out of his prayer room and walked toward the convention hall. A group of Hindus who had never heard of the Gospel had come to this great gathering feeling that something unusual was taking place. Praying Hyde walked up to them, stretched forth his hands and breathed a prayer. Many fell at his feet seeking God as their Redeemer because the power of this Spirit-anointed man was so great.

God put upon Hyde’s heart a burden of confession. In one of the meetings he arose and confessed to the terrible sins of his pre-conversion days. When somebody criticized those confessions, the Spirit of God broke up the meeting. Later, backslidden Indian church members and even missionaries who had lost their first love arose and confessed.

A wave of heavenly conviction struck the audience and hundreds bowed. There was weeping all over the hall because God had come.

This marvelous power marked Praying Hyde henceforth. Often when he started out in the morning, God would impress upon his mind a certain number and Hyde would say, “Lord, I thank Thee that Thou art going to give me this number of souls today.”

One day, Hyde was impressed to strive for sixty souls. He labored on highways and in bazaars. He met farmers in their fields. He knocked at the doors of their homes and spoke to whole families. He accosted people in the streets. Wherever he met anyone in his travels that day, whether walking or riding, he spoke to them about salvation. Before the day was over, sixty had found God.

On another day he felt God impress upon his mind to seek twelve souls. By dark he was in a home where he had just won his eleventh. One of the friends said, “It is time for us to leave. The hour is late and the distance is long before we get back to the mission.”

Praying Hyde merely answered, “The Lord promised me twelve souls and I cannot leave. There is one lost soul yet to be found and brought into the fold.”

Laboring under this spiritual sense, Hyde breathed a prayer. Soon a fourteen-year-old boy entered the room. The householder looked at the lad and then at John. Then he spoke, “This is your twelfth soul. He is my nephew living with us now. He has been away and I had forgotten him.”

John Hyde had already won the other members of that household. Now he began to pray with the lad. He asked God to save the boy who had never heard the Gospel of Christ preached before. God pricked through the heart of the Hindu lad ‘and he was converted.

At times John Hyde would remain in his room for days.

In the morning a Hindu servant would knock on his door and set inside a platter of food. He would come back at noon with a second platter and pick up the first. Sometimes for ten days in succession he would find the platter untouched. When John got through those fasting and prayer vigils, the anointing of God was so mightily upon him that wherever he went souls were drawn into the kingdom.

After the Sailkot Convention, a great revival which started in Punjab, swept throughout India. Thousands were brought into the fold. It was estimated that one hundred thousand were converted. Pandita Ramabai of the Mukti Mission in South India heard of the mighty power of Praying Hyde and sent workers to inquire about the source of that power.

They learned of Hyde’s perseverance in prayer. Pandita Ramabai called her assistants and converts in for a period of prevailing prayer. They called upon God and a spiritual revival known as the Mukti revival followed. Thousands were converted. This revival tide swept into Japan, Australia and China.