Foreword
During the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century and a score of years of the twentieth, there lived and died three great men of God whom I knew—men whom God has doubtless numbered among the foremost of His heavenly host. The first was Edward McKendree Bounds, author of this present volume and the other “Spiritual Life” Books. The second was ClaudL.Chilton, minister for many years in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and a musical composer of religious music of considerable note. The third, ClementC.Cary, preacher and editor, lost his life in an automobile accident in 1922. The fourth was Dr.B. F.Haynes, minister, editor and author, who died in Nashville, in 1923.
What Dr. Thomas Goodwin, the Puritan, was to Strong, Arrowsmith and Spurstow; what John Wesley was to Whitefield, Fletcher and Clark, Bounds was to Chilton, Cary and Haynes. What David Brainerd’sJournaldid for Cary, Martyn, McCheyne, Bounds’ books can do for thousands of God’s children. He was a man who lived ever on prayer ground. He walked and talked with the Lord. Prayer was the great weapon in his arsenal, his pathway to the Throne of Grace. None whoread what he has written can fail of realising that Edward McKendree Bounds talked with God, as a man talketh to his friend.
HomerW.Hodge.
Flushing, N. Y.