PRAYER AND PRAYING MEN REV. EDWARD M. BOUNDS PRAYER AND PRAYING MEN BY REV. EDWARD M. BOUNDS AUTHOR OF “THE INEFFABLE GLORY,” “PREACHER AND PRAYER,” “PURPOSE IN PRAYER,” ETC. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY REV. HOMER W. HODGE HODDER & STOUGHTON LIMITED : : LONDON COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA INTRODUCTION Rev. Edward McKendrie Bounds was passionately devoted to his beloved Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. His devotion was extraordinary in that he was praying and writing about Him all the time, except during the hours of sleeping. God gave Bounds an enlargedness of heart and an insatiable desire to do service for Him. To this end he enjoyed what I am pleased to term a transcendent inspiration, else he could never have brought out of his treasury things new and old far exceeding anything we have known or read in the last half century. Bounds is easily the Betelguese of the devotional sky. There is no man that has lived since the days of the apostles that has surpassed him in the depths of his marvelous research into the Life of Prayer. He was busily engaged in writing on his manuscripts when the Lord said unto him, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord.” His letters would often come to me in Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1911, 1912 and 1913, saying, “Pray for me that God will give me new nerves and new visions to finish the manuscripts.” Wesley was of the sweetest and most forgiving disposition, but when aroused he was a man of the “keenest penetration with a gift of speech that bit like the stroke of a whip.” Bounds was meek and humble, and never did we know him to retaliate upon any of his enemies. He cried over them and wept praying for them early and late. Wesley was easily gulled. “My brother,” said Charles, on one occasion in disgusting accents, “was, I believe, born for the benefit of knaves.” No man could impose on Bounds’ credulity. He was a diagnostician of rare ability. Bounds shied away from all frauds in profession, and would waste no time upon them. Wesley was preaching and riding all day. Bounds was praying and writing day and night. Wesley would not allow any misrepresentation of his doctrinal positions in his late years. Bounds in this respect was very much like him. Wesley came to his fame while yet alive. He was always in the public eye. Bounds, while editing a _Christian Advocate_ for twelve years, was little known out of his church. Wesley at eighty-six could still preach on the streets for thirty minutes. Bounds was able at seventy-five in the first hour of the fourth watch to pray for three hours upon his knees.