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Billy Bray
(1794-1868)
The Man With A Shout
Billy Bray was born in 1794 at Twelveheads, a village near Truro, in Cornwall England. Billy's father had died when he was quite young and Billy lived with his grandfather who had joined the Methodists under the preaching of John Wesley. When he turned seventeen he went to Devonshire where he resorted to sin, carnality, and drunkenness. A few years later, he married, and found work as a miner, but was so drawn and bound to drink that his wife would have to go and fetch him each night out of the local pubs.
One day someone gave Billy a book to read. Billy not really wanting to read it found himself drawn to its pages. It was after reading this book that Billy met the Spirit of conviction. The book's name? "Visions of Heaven and Hell" by John Bunyan. From that day forward Billy was a new creature indeed. Ready to serve God at all cost.
One of the most striking things about Billy Bray was his continual excitement and joy after his salvation. Just like today, many religious people that Billy saw were often gloomy and sorrowful. If they were truly born again, Billy thought, you would never know it by their lives. But when one came around Billy he was always smiling, singing, and even heard shouting praises to God.
One day when questioned about his abundant joy he responded, "He has made me glad and no one can make me sad. He makes me shout and no one can make me doubt. He it is that makes me dance and leap, and there is no one that can keep down my feet." He continued, "I sometimes feel so much of the power of God that, I believe, if they were to cut off my feet I should heave up the stumps."
Many of the religious spirits of his day could be heard complaining about his dancing and shouting. Whenever Billy heard it he would just remind them of how Mirian and David danced before the Lord, and of the cripple at Lystra who, after he was healed, leaped and walked, praising God. Billy declared that it was even prophesied that 'the lame shall leap as a hart.' "I can't help praising God,"
Billy declared, "As I go along the street I lift up one foot, and it seems to say Glory! and I lift up the other, and it seems to say, Amen; and so they keep on like that all the time I am walking."
To those who objected to his shout he would say, "If they were to put me in a barrel, I would shout glory out through the bung-hole! Praise the Lord!"
One time Billy was asked if people sometimes got in such a habit of praising that they did not know what they were praising about. Billy replied, "I do not think that the Lord is much troubled with that class of person."
One day Billy heard of the death of a preacher who had opposed any emotion in the church. Billy commenting on his ministry declared, "So, he is done with the doubters and has got up now with the shouters." Turning to some others standing by, "Some can only eat out of the silent dish, but I can not only eat out of that one, but out of the shouting dish, and jumping dish, and every other dish. My comrades used to tell me that was no religion, dancing, shouting and making so much to-do, but I was born in the fire and could not live in the smoke."
At the end of Billy's life the doctor was present at his bedside. With little tact he told Billy that he was going to die. Billy responded, "Glory! glory be to God! I shall soon be in heaven." Then he asked the doctor, "When I get up there, shall I give them your compliments, doctor, and tell them you will be coming too?" This really touched the hard hearted doctor's heart. Even at death Billy's joy was a powerful witness to the love of Christ.
Billy's dying word was, "Glory!" But right before he died he said of death, "What, me fear death? lost? Why, my Savior conquered death. If I was to go down to hell I would shout glory! glory! to my blessed Jesus until I made the bottomless pit ring again, and that miserable old Satan would say, 'Billy, Billy, this is no place for thee: get thee back!' Then up to heaven I should go, shouting glory! glory! praise the Lord!"
Billy Bray, the man with a shout, went on to be with the Lord and heavens shouters in 1868.
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