EDWARD MCKENDREE BOUNDS
E. M. Bounds (1835–1913) was a Methodist minister and devotional writer, born in Shelby County, Missouri. He studied law growing up and was admitted to the bar at age twenty-one. After practicing law for three years, he began preaching for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. At the time of his pastorate in Brunswick, Missouri, war was declared, and he was made a prisoner of war for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the federal government. After release he served as chaplain of the 5th Missouri Regiment (of the Confederate Army) until the close of the war. After the war ended, Bounds served as pastor of churches in Tennessee, Alabama, and St. Louis, Missouri.
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He spent the last seventeen years of his life with his family in Washington, Georgia, writing his “Spiritual Life Books.” His book Power Through Prayer is called by some the greatest book on prayer ever written. It is said that he prayed daily for three hours before he would begin work on his writings. Following are excerpts from Power Through Prayer and his sermon “Praying Men Are God’s Mightiest Leaders.”
The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness, in other pursuits than seeking God will make poor headway seeking him the rest of the day. If God is not first in our thoughts and efforts in the morning, he will be in the last place the remainder of the day.
Behind this early rising and early praying is the ardent desire which presses us into this pursuit after God. Morning listlessness is the index to a listless heart. The heart which is behindhand in seeking God in the morning has lost its relish for God. David’s heart was ardent after God. He hungered and thirsted after God, and so he sought God early, before daylight. The bed and sleep could not chain his soul in its eagerness after God. Christ longed for communion with God; and so, rising a great while before day, he would go out into the mountain to pray. The disciples, when fully awake and ashamed of their indulgence, would know where to find him. We might go through the list of men who have mightily impressed the world for God, and we would find them early after God.