Introduction

Biography

Leo was the son of min­is­ter Hen­ry Jef­fer­son Boles and Sarah Smith. He mar­ried twice: to Cyn­thia Can­trell (1894) and Ida Mae Meis­er (1906).

He gra­du­at­ed from Bur­ritt Col­lege, Spen­cer, Ten­nes­see, in 1900.

He taught for four years in Ten­nes­see and Tex­as, then en­tered the Nash­ville Bi­ble School in 1903 (gra­du­at­ed 1906). He earned an MA de­gree from Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty in Nash­ville in 1920.

In the fall of 1906, he joined the fa­cul­ty of Da­vid Lips­comb Col­lege (then the Nash­ville Bi­ble School). He taught phi­lo­so­phy and ma­the­ma­tics there for se­ven years, and ev­en­tu­al­ly be­came pre­si­dent of the school.

He served as pre­si­dent of David Lips­comb Col­lege 1913–20, and 1923–32, and was on the col­lege’s Board of Trust­ees.

Works

He was a con­trib­ut­or, ed­it­or and staff writ­er for the Gos­pel Ad­vo­cate for al­most four de­cades.

A vo­lu­mi­nous writ­er, he penned com­men­tar­ies on the books Mat­thew, Luke, and Acts, a vol­ume on the Ho­ly Spir­it, and bio­gra­phi­cal sketch­es of Gos­pel preach­ers.