EDWARD MCKENDREE BOUNDS was born in Shelby County, Mo., August 15, 1835,
and died August 24, 1913, in Washington, Ga. He received a common school
education at Shelbyville and was admitted to the bar soon after his
majority. He practiced law until called to preach the Gospel at the age
of twenty-four. His first pastorate was Monticello, Mo., Circuit. It was
while serving as pastor of Brunswick, Mo., that war was declared and the
young minister was made a prisoner of war because he would not take the
oath of allegiance to the Federal Government. He was sent to St. Louis
and later transferred to Memphis, Tenn.
Finally securing his release, he traveled on foot nearly one hundred
miles to join General Pierce’s command in Mississippi and was soon after
made chaplain of the Fifth Missouri Regiment, a position he held until
near the close of the war, when he was captured and held as prisoner at
Nashville, Tenn.
After the war Rev. E. M. Bounds was pastor of churches in Tennessee and
Alabama. In 1875 he was assigned to St. Paul Methodist Church in St.
Louis, and served there for four years. In 1876 he was married to Miss
Emmie Barnette at Eufaula, Ala., who died ten years later. In 1887 he
was married to Miss Hattie Barnette, who, with five children, survives
him.
After serving several pastorates he was sent to the First Methodist
Church in St. Louis, Mo., for one year and to St. Paul Methodist Church
for three years. At the end of his pastorate, he became the editor of
the St. Louis “Christian Advocate.”
He was a forceful writer and a very deep thinker. He spent the last
seventeen years of his life with his family in Washington, Ga. Most of
the time he was reading, writing and praying. He rose at 4 a. m. each
day for many years and was indefatigable in his study of the Bible. His
writings were read by thousands of people and were in demand by the
church people of every Protestant denomination.
Bounds was the embodiment of humility, with a seraphic devotion to Jesus
Christ. He reached that high place where self is forgotten and the love
of God and humanity was the all-absorbing thought and purpose. At
seventy-six years of age he came to me in Brooklyn, N.Y., and so intense
was he that he awoke us at 3 o’clock in the morning praying and weeping
over the lost of earth. All during the day he would go into the church
next door and be found on his knees until called for his meals. This is
what he called the “Business of Praying.” Infused with this heavenly
ozone, he wrote “Preacher and Prayer,” a classic in its line, and now
gone into several foreign languages, read by men and women all over the
world. In 1909, while Rev. A. C. Dixon was preaching in Dr. Broughton’s
Tabernacle, Atlanta, Ga., I sent him a copy of “Preacher and Prayer,” by
Bounds. Hear what he says:
“This little book was given me by a friend. I received another copy at
Christmas from another friend. ‘Well,’ thought I, ‘there must be
something worth while in the little book or two of my friends would not
have selected the same present for me.’ So I read the first page until I
came to the words: ‘Man is looking for better methods, God is looking
for better men. Man is God’s method.’ That was enough for me and my
appetite demanded more until the book was finished with pleasure.”
This present volume is a companion work, and reflects the true spirit of
a man whose business it was to live the gospel that he preached. He was
not a luminary but a SUN and takes his place with Brainerd and Bramwell
as untiring intercessors with God.