"Praying Hyde"



John Nelson Hyde 1865-1912



John Hyde was a pretty cool guy, so cool that his friends nicknamed him "Praying Hyde." He was the son of a Presbyterian minsister who was also very active in prayer, which is probably where John got such an influence in prayer from. He attended Cathage College and was elected to a position on the faculty there, but he felt God was calling him to the mission field. So he resigned his position at the college and attended Presbyterian seminary instead. In 1892 he graduated and in the following October he sailed to India. There his 20 year journey of fervent prayer and constant adventure began. John Hyde did not take praying for granted and he knew it was the most powerful and effective tool he had to reach the natives, because anything he couldn't do God could do. The natives would call him "the man who never sleeps" and some termed him "the apostle of prayer", but he was most familiarly known as "the Praying Hyde." Sometimes he spent 30 days and nights in prayer, and a lot of times he would be on his knees in prayer for 36 hours at a time. For years John led four to ten people a day to Christ, this surely showed that prayer does work. He lived a life of sacrifice, humility, love for the souls of others, and deep spirituality, and his life of prayer influenced others to follow in his footsteps. On February 17th, 1912, he passed away, and he finally got to meet the King of Kings and Creator of this whole Universe who he had been praying to all his life. The last words he said were, "Shout the Victory of Jesus Christ!" He never stopped believing, don't ever stop believing.