Billy Bray was born at Twelveheads, a tin-mining village near Truro, Cornwall, on June 1, 1794. His paternal grandfather worshipped in the Methodist chapel, which he had helped to build. Billy’s father was also a devout Methodist. He died when his children were very young and Billy lived with his grandfather until he was seventeen years old. He then moved to Devon. Here he married and here, too, he lived a wild life of drunken debauchery.

Later he said, “I became the companion of drunkards, and during that time I was very near hell.” During those reckless days he had a number of hairbreadth escapes from death.

Once, when working in the mine, he heard a rent in the overhead rock and began to run. Forty tons of rock fell on the spot where he had been working. On such occasions he was sobered in spirit, but only for a short time. Yet conscience often troubled him.

“I used to dread to go to sleep,” he said, “for fear of waking up in hell.” After seven years in Devon, Billy returned to Cornwall a confirmed drunkard. His wife had to go out nightly and fetch him home from the public house.

“I sinned against light and knowledge,” he said, “and never got drunk without being condemned for it.” He often reflected, in later life, on his evil youth. He kept bad company, but remarked, “I was the worst of the lot.” So terrible was his blasphemy that his godless companions declared “that his oaths must come from hell, for they smelt of sulphur!"

Billy Bray was an eccentric and a wit. He could ridicule holy things and often did so. Later, as a Christian, this same wit was to make him popular as a witness to others. At the age of twenty-nine, Billy came under real conviction of sin as the result of reading Bunyans’s “Visions of Heaven and Hell.”

Bunyan describes two lost souls in hell cursing each other, for being the author of each other’s destruction and noted that they who love one another on earth, may hate one another in hell! Billy thought of his closest drinking companion. Like an arrow the thought struck him, “Shall S. Coad and I, who like each other so much, torment each other in hell?”

Billy’s wife had been converted when young, but had become a backslider before marriage. Secretly Billy longed for his wife’s restoration, thinking that this would make conversion easier for him. That was not what happened.

Billy’s burden grew so heavy that he arose from his bed one morning at three o’clock and began to pray. “I found,” he said, “that the more I prayed, the more I felt to pray.” For some days Billy wrestled in prayer and spent much time reading the Bible. He was in obvious distress, so that even his fellow-workers began to pity him. Billy’s response was typical: “I was glad that I had begun to seek the Lord, for I would rather be crying for mercy than living in sin.”

Peace finally came to him as he knelt alone in his room. Here is how he describes that moment . . .

“I said to the Lord, ‘Thou hast said, They that ask shall receive, they that seek shall find, and to them that knock the door shall be opened, and I have faith to believe it.’ In an instant the Lord made me so happy that I cannot express what I felt. I shouted for joy. I praised God with my whole heart for what He had done for a poor sinner like me; for I could 8 say, the Lord hath pardoned all my sins. I think this was in November, 1823, but what day of the month I do not know. I remember this, that everything looked new to me, the people, the fields, the cattle, the trees. I was like a man in a new world. I spent the greater part of my time praising the Lord. I could say with Isaiah, ‘O Lord, I will praise Thee, for though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortedst me,’ or like David, ‘The Lord hath brought me up out of an horrible pit of mire and clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings, and hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto my God.’ I was a new man altogether.”

Billy’s sanctified eccentricity and wit immediately came into service, as he witnessed to all whom he met and told what the Lord had done for his soul.

“Some said I was mad: and others that they should get me back again next payday. But, praise the Lord, it is now more than forty years, and they have not got me yet. They said I was a mad-man, but they meant I was a glad-man, and, glory be to God! I have been glad ever since.”

The exuberant man could also be tremendously serious. Often, before going down the mine with the other men, he would remove his cap and pray aloud, “Lord, if any of us must be killed or die today, let it be me; let not one of these men die, for they are not happy; but I am, and if I die today I shall go to heaven.” Billy Bray was instrumental in times of revival in Cornwall and many were led to seek the Saviour through his preaching and testimony. Before conversion, the public house had been his haven; now he hated it with “a perfect hatred”. Public houses, he said, were “hell houses” for they were places “where people were prepared for hell.”

Having been a drunkard himself, he knew that “moderation” was no cure. “Ye might as well hang an old woman’s apron in the gap of a potato field to prevent the old sow with young pigs from going in, as expect a drunkard to be cured with moderation.” Billy Bray’s wife was spiritually restored soon after his conversion and he was used of God in bring this to pass. Together they rejoiced in God’s goodness and mercy.

Billy’s life was marked by real happiness. He was constantly praising God and constantly exhorting others to seek the Saviour. His religion was intensely practical and many testified to his personal interest and kindness. He simply bubbled over with joy. “I am the son of a King” was one of his favourite sayings.

Few, if any, have shown so much of the joy of salvation as Billy Bray; and few, if any, have been as faithful in personal witnessing. This is how the Rev. M. G. Pearse described Billy Bray’s religion:

“Religion to Billy was not a duty to be done – not a privilege to be enjoyed in leisure hours – not a benefit club, a comfortable provision for ‘rainy days’ – it was a LIFE Never left behind, never put off with the Sabbath’s clothes, never hidden before great or low, good or bad, but IN him, flowing through him, speaking in every word, felt in every action, seen in every look – deep, true, abiding religion was with him altogether a life. Dead indeed unto sin, he was now living unto God through Jesus Christ.”

Billy was almost seventy-four when he died after preaching at Cranstock, in May 1868 and Billy, although very tired and looking like a man in the last stages of consumption, was actively involved.

When the doctor examined him, Billy asked, “Well, doctor, how is it?"

“You are going to die,” was the grave reply.

Billy shouted, “Glory! Glory be to God! I shall soon be in heaven.” Then, in a low voice he asked, “When I get up there, shall I tell them you will be coming too?” So he witnessed to the end.

His last word was “Glory!” Thus there stepped into eternity one of the worst and one of the best men, and one of the happiest of the saint of God. - (Printed by permission of “Ambassador Publications” Emerald House, 1 Chicks Road, Greenville, U.S.A.).