William Hyde Is Called by the Spirit of Prophecy and Ordained at Nauvoo Conference

In October 1839, William Hyde attended a conference in Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Saints were gathering after their expulsion from Missouri. He recorded in his *Private Journal* a remarkable event: he was called — not by any presiding officer planning the ordination in advance — but by the Spirit of prophecy itself, and was ordained to the office of Elder on the 7th of October and commissioned to preach the gospel.

His journal reads:

"I then went to Nauvoo, where the Saints were then gathering, for the purpose of attending a conference, and the 7th inst. was called by the Spirit of prophecy and ordained to the office of an Elder and commissioned to preach the Gospel."

This spontaneous, spiritually-directed call — where the Spirit moved upon the presiding authorities in the moment to call and ordain a man who had simply come to attend — was characteristic of the early Nauvoo period, and Hyde himself understood it as a direct divine commission. He set out on his first mission just weeks later, on November 6, 1839, traveling through Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan without purse or scrip.

Fuller account of this event (the complete account as preserved in The Private Journal of William Hyde, p. 7):

I then went to Nauvoo, where the Saints were then gathering, for the purpose of attending a conference, and the 7th inst. was called by the Spirit of prophecy and ordained to the office of an Elder and commissioned to preach the Gospel.