This week in Christian history: Billy Graham preaches to 3,000 in Chicago, Billy Bray dies

Billy Bray dies – May 25, 1868

This week marks the anniversary of when Billy Bray, a British miner who became a traveling evangelist and church planter, died a few days shy of his 74th birthday.

Born in Twelveheads, Cornwall, England, before coming to faith as an adult, Bray was known for living a profane life that included frequent drunkenness and blasphemy.

However, as part of an effort to improve his personal moral behavior, Bray read John Bunyan’s Visions of Heaven and Hell, as well as the hymns of Charles Wesley and the Bible.

After converting, he joined the Methodist-derived movement known as the Bible Christians, and became a licensed preacher with the group.

“He would go around the county preaching in the chapels; no name was more familiar to people at that time than Billy Bray’s,” noted the website UK Wells. “On one occasion he went to preach at the opening of a chapel, but the crowds were so big that he had to preach in a field.”

“Billy had a wife and seven children. He preached most Sundays and had a full-time job as a tin miner, yet he found time to build three chapels. He did not ignore his calling because he had no time; he made time.”