Lived 1835 - 1913

Edward McKendree Bounds, Methodist minister and author of books chiefly on prayer, was born in rural Missouri on August 15, 1835. Although apprenticed as an attorney, Bounds felt called to the ministry in his early twenties. He was ordained by his denomination in 1859, and was named pastor of the Monticello, Missouri Methodist Church.

When the American Civil War began two years later, Bounds became a chaplain in the Confederate States Army and was taken prisoner during the first battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Upon his release, he felt compelled to return to war-torn Franklin and help rebuild it spiritually. His method was to establish weekly prayer sessions that sometimes lasted several hours. Bounds was regionally celebrated for leading spiritual revival in Franklin and eventually began an itinerant preaching ministry throughout the country.

Bounds was associate editor of the official Methodist newspaper, the Christian Advocate. He wrote books and articles almost continually until his death on August 24, 1913.

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The Necessity of Prayer

(64 pages)

The Necessity of Prayer and other books by E.M. Bounds are unfailing wells for a lifetime of spiritual water-drawing. His wise counsel on prayer are words that originated on the anvil of experience. His thoughts are inspiring, dynamic, and forthright. Probably no one has ever written more convincingly on the subject of prayer than E.M. Bounds. The Necessity of Prayer will help today’s earnest Christians to discover the mystery and the majesty of prayer.

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The possibilities of prayer

(46 pages)

“How vast are the possibilities of prayer! How wide is its reach! What great things are accomplished by this divinely appointed means of grace! It lays its hand on Almighty God and moves Him to do what He would not otherwise do if prayer was not offered. It brings things to pass which would never otherwise occur. The story of prayer is the story of great achievements.” — EM Bounds

Edward McKendree Bounds 1

Power through prayer

(30 pages)

“What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer.” — EM Bounds

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The weapon of prayer

(35 pages)

“God’s great plan for the redemption of mankind is as much bound up to prayer for its prosperity and success as when the decree creating the movement was issued from the Father, bearing on its frontage the imperative, universal and eternal condition, ‘Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for thy possession.’” — EM Bounds

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