Many Christians have profited spiritually from reading the works of E. M. Bounds on prayer. His rich, powerful quotes on the subject of prayer have been repeated many times. He said rightly, “The story of every great Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer.”

E. M. Bounds is the author of eleven published books, the majority of which revolves around the subject of prayer. Titles include The Necessity of Prayer, The Possibilities of Prayer, Power Through Prayer, and Purpose in Prayer. Most of these books were published posthumously, as his notes and manuscripts were collected after his death.

Bounds not only preached about prayer—he lived it. He was well-known in his lifetime for his habit of rising at 4:00 every morning and praying alone for several hours before breakfast. His prayers were fervent, consistent, detailed, powerful, and they had a lasting influence upon the few who were privileged to hear his private prayers.

Edward McKendree Bounds was born in Shelbyville, Missouri, on August 15, 1835. His father was Thomas Jefferson Bounds. His mother was Hester Ann, known affectionately as “Hetty.”

The Bounds family were faithful Christians and devoted members of the Methodist Church. Edward’s middle name “McKendree” was bestowed in honor of William McKendree, a pioneer evangelist and Revolutionary War veteran who carried the Gospel into the western regions of the young United States.

Following in the steps of Francis Asbury and John Wesley, that older evangelist William McKendree preached and planted churches throughout Missouri. It is very possible that the church that E. M. Bounds grew up in was started by William McKendree. E. M. Bounds was the fifth child in his family. His father served as Justice of the Peace and County Clerk for Shelby County. He died of tuberculosis when his son, Edward, was fourteen years old.

Soon thereafter, the fatherless boy contracted what was known as “gold fever.” He joined in the California gold rush, heading westward along with several older relatives in 1849 to find gold in Mesquite Canyon. Similar to most prospectors who panned the California streams for the yellow prize, the Bounds never struck it rich.

E. M. Bounds returned to Missouri when he was eighteen. Having failed to get rich quick by finding a vein of gold ore, he resolved to take a more steady approach to life. The young man began studying law in Hannibal, Missouri.

Bounds quickly advanced through law studies and became the youngest practicing attorney in the state of Missouri. In the growing and prosperous Midwest, he had a promising career laid out before him as a successful lawyer. But a higher claim soon arrested his attention.

During a revival service, E. M. Bounds felt a strong call from God to abandon his pursuit of the law and instead to preach the Gospel of Christ. Bounds was a man of action. With the same promptness that he had set out for California, he now set out for the higher prize: the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. He closed his law office and entered a small Methodist seminary in Palmyra, Missouri.

After two years of study, E. M. Bounds was ordained to the Gospel ministry and installed as pastor of the Methodist Church in Monticello, Missouri. The year he started his ministry was 1859. The young pastor did not know and could not have known that his ministry was about to be interrupted by a horrific civil war that would rip apart his beloved state, as well as the entire country.

E. M. Bounds was a man of peace. He was surprised at the outbreak of hostilities between the North and South. The federal officials in Missouri called upon him to take an oath of allegiance to the United States government and to post $500 in bond money. His only crime was being a minister of the Gospel in a denomination rooted in the South. Because of his denominational associations with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, he was assumed to be a Confederate sympathizer.

Most of the settlers in the northern counties of Missouri were originally from Kentucky and Virginia and had family ties to the Confederate States. But Bounds was not a slave holder, nor was he hostile to the Union. He saw no reason why he, a United States citizen, should be forced to take an oath of allegiance or pay $500 to support the federal war machine that was invading the states of the South.

Upon his refusal to swear or to pay, E. M. Bounds was arrested in 1861 and held in a prison in St. Louis. He was finally released after over a year of imprisonment as part of a prisoner exchange. Upon his release and transfer to Memphis, Tennessee, Bounds became a chaplain in the Confederate Army, serving a Missouri regiment of infantry. He was beloved by the officers and men of the regiment, and he participated in several seasons of tremendous revival as the Spirit of God was poured out upon the men in the Confederate camps.

Bounds was taken prisoner a second time after the Battle of Franklin (Tennessee) in 1864. During that same battle, he was wounded in the forehead with a nasty cut from a saber. He was not released until the war was over, in the summer of 1865.

Upon his release from federal prison, E. M. Bounds returned to Franklin, Tennessee. He became a pastor at the local Methodist church there. The revival that had started in the Confederate Army during the war deepened and widened in the years after the conflict was over. The Gospel offered hope to wounded veterans—deprived of arms, legs, homes, and friends—as they sought to rebuild their lives.

Bounds served as a minister of the Gospel for the rest of his long, active life. He pastored in St. Louis, Missouri, and he edited a Methodist periodical in St. Louis as well. He also served as editor of a Christian paper in Nashville.

Finally, Bounds settled down in Washington, Georgia. By this time, he was known as a faithful man of prayer. He often received engagements to travel to other states and preach revival services and lead prayer meetings.

In 1876, Bounds was united in marriage to Emma Barnett, a young lady from Washington, Georgia. The Lord blessed the couple with a son and two daughters. E. M. Bounds suffered the hardship of losing his beloved Emma after only six years of marriage. In due time, he remarried. His second wife was a Godly young lady named Harriet Barnett, a cousin of his first wife Emma. He and Harriet were blessed with six additional children.

As E. M. Bounds grew older and weaker in body, he maintained his spiritual vigor. He preached less and less and prayed more and more. Letters came to him from all over the country, seeking his prayer on matters, such as concerning a specific church, a family member, or a friend. Bounds took these matters to the Lord in earnest prayer. Those who knew him well reported seeing him on his knees with tears running down his cheeks, pleading with a gracious God to hear and answer according to His good and perfect will.

E. M. Bounds left the prayer closet for the Heavenly palace on August 24, 1913, at the age of seventy-eight. God had given him abundant fruit for his labor. Bounds’s influence continues wherever his books are read, and his prayers have been multiplied many times in the hearts of others.

Sources and Further Reference:

Dorsett, Lyle. E. M. Bounds: Man of Prayer. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991.