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.  [An extract from an Introduction by Homer W. Hodge, 1920AD.]