This is probably the smallest and cheapest book you’ll have in your library. It’s only 128 pages, can be bought for about 5 bucks, the print is large and the book is small, however it contains a mountain of content. E.M. Bounds was a chaplain during the Civil War. Did he say Iraq or Afghanistan? You heard me correctly, the Civil War. This is an old book. Bounds is long dead, but this book isn’t.

Here’s an excerpt from the book, “The pulpit of this day is weak in praying. The pride of learning is against the dependent humility of prayer. Prayer is with the pulpit too often only official - a performance for the routine service. Prayer is not to the modern pulpit the mighty force it was in Paul’s life or Paul’s ministry. Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God’s work and is powerless to advance God’s cause in this world. (page 15)”

Here’s another, “The holier a man is, the more does he estimate prayer; the clearer does he see that God gives Himself to the praying ones, and that the measure of God’s revelation to the soul is the measure of the soul’s longing prayer for God. Salvation never finds its way to a prayerless heart. The Holy Spirit never abides in a prayerless spirit. Preaching never edifies a prayerless soul. Christ knows nothing of prayerless Christians.”

This book deals a lot with preachers. However, it would be naive to say this book does not apply to you if you are not a preacher. The principles about prayer that E.M. Bounds talks about in this book apply to any believer at any time.