The Secret Place of John Hyde

John Nelson Hyde was born on November 9, 1865, in Carrollton, Illinois, the son of a devout Presbyterian pastor. His childhood home was steeped in Scripture and prayer. From his earliest days he felt the weight of eternal things. After graduating from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago in 1892, he volunteered for mission work in India. Many of his peers expected him to return home quickly, for he was shy, deaf in one ear, and physically frail. But hidden in his heart burned a hunger for God that no weakness could extinguish.

Arriving in India, Hyde found himself in Sialkot, Punjab, working among hardened, resistant communities. His preaching at first bore little visible fruit. Discouraged, he began to spend longer hours in prayer. Soon his entire ministry shifted from public striving to secret intercession. In lonely rooms, on long night watches, Hyde learned to wrestle with God until his spirit broke through.

He set himself to pray for souls with measurable faith. At first he asked God for one soul a day, and when the Spirit answered, he dared to ask for two, then four. His diary and testimonies of others confirm that he would not sleep until he knew that prayer had been answered. His petitions were often accompanied by tears and groans that echoed Paul's description of travailing in birth until Christ was formed in souls. In 1904–1905, when revival broke out at Sialkot, Hyde's hidden intercession was recognized as the unseen power behind it. Missionaries testified that his prayers opened heavens over the Punjab.

Hyde became known as Praying Hyde. Reports describe him spending whole nights face down on the floor, sometimes groaning aloud, sometimes weeping silently, always carrying names and faces before God. In 1908 he wrote of a burden so great that it seemed to crush his body, yet when he prayed, peace and joy would flood his heart. Friends noted that his physical frame grew weaker as his prayer burden grew stronger.

By 1911 Hyde's health collapsed. He traveled to America in hopes of recovery but was diagnosed with a diseased heart, so enlarged that doctors marveled he could live at all. He returned briefly to India, then came back to the United States, where he died in 1912 in North Carolina at the age of forty-six. His last words reportedly were, "Shout the victory of Jesus Christ."