24. Victory

Victory

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death" (1Co 15:26). John Hyde had faced the en- emy too many times in going over into "No Man’s Land’’ to rescue the dying to be frightened when the last awful encounter took place that February day in 1912. When John Hyde was in England Mr. Charles M. Alexander took him to his own doctor and then a consultation with two other physicians was held. The doctor then endeavored to impress Mr. Hyde with the serious- ness of his condition. Mr. Alexander listened to the conversation. Surely Mr. Hyde understood that really he was then in a dying condition. Both Mr. Alexander and the doctor were amazed at Mr. Hyde’s perfect composure. He had long ago ceased to fear death, and for him to depart and be with Christ was far better.

I am persuaded that no words of mine could fittingly bring this sketch to a close. But the descrip- tion I am using is from the pen of Dr. W. B. Anderson in The Men’s Record and Missionary Re- view (United Presbyterian.) Dr. Anderson was for some years himself a missionary in India and was chairman of the committee that established the Sialkot Convention. He was well acquainted with dear John Hyde. He writes: "He went a long way into the suffering of India and he had des- perate encounters with her foe for her deliverance. To him who dares much in this warfare God seems to give a wonderful vision of victory.

"One day about four years ago he was talking of an experience he had on a day of prayer that was being observed for India. He was speaking intimately to intimate friends. He said: ’On the day of prayer God gave me a new experience. I seemed to be away above our conflict here in the Punjab and I saw God’s great battle in all India, and then away out beyond in China, Japan, and Africa. I saw how we had been thinking in narrow circles of our own countries and in our own denominations, and how God was now rapidly joining force to force and line to line and all was beginning to be one great struggle. That, to me, means the great triumph of Christ. We do not dare any longer to fight without the consciousness of this great world battle in which we are engaged.

’We must exercise the greatest care to be utterly obedient to Him who sees all the battle field all the time. It is only He who can put each man in the place where his life can count for the most.’ Above all the strife of battle he could see the great Commander whom he was following so im- plicitly.

"When the word came to us in India that after severe suffering in America, he had been called Home, it seemed to me that I could hear something of an echo of the shout of victory as he entered into the King’s presence. Then the next word that came was that he had died with the words upon his lips: ’Bol, Yisu’ Masih, Ki Jai!’ (’Shout, the victory of Jesus Christ!)

"When I heard that I thought of that awful time in the life of our Lord when his foes were closing in about him. He knew that the time of his sacrifice was near. Just before him lay the desertion of his disciples, and Gethsemane and Calvary. Yet in that hour he said, ’Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’ Then I remembered the days and nights when Mr. Hyde had struggled in India for those bound by sin, and that after hours of agony he had often risen with those about him to shout: ’Bol, Yisu’ Masih ki jai,’ until this has become the great war cry of the Punjab Church. As he sent that shout back to us from the presence of the great Victor, let us see to it that it rings throughout the whole world: ’Shout, the victory of Jesus Christ.’ " In Jehovah’s Name, Amen!