May 25th | Billy Bray (Death) |
Born just outside St. Day, Billy Bray and his siblings were brought up by their grandfather who was a committed Methodist. For his first seven years of work, Bray was employed in both Devon and Cornwall as a miner and, by his own account, was a riotous drunkard but was converted, in 1823, after reading John Bunyan’s ‘Visions of Heaven and Hell’ and became a Bible Christian, an offshoot of the Methodist denomination. His exuberant preaching, involving jumping, shouting and singing often inspired his congregation to also spontaneously sing, dance and exclaim ‘Praise the Lord’ also often bursting into tears. |
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