GREAT EVANGELISTS AND TEMPERANCE

White Ribbon, Volume 19, Issue 2, 1 March 1947, Page 5

GREAT EVANGELISTS AND TEMPERANCE

By VICTORIA GRIGG, M.A

5. —BILLY BRAY

riiere was a great difference between Billy Bray and the other evangelists such as Beecher, Finney, and Wesley, of whom i wrote iii my previous articles. Billy Brav did rot start with the educational advantages of the others, but he could sptaic from very personal experience—which they could not do—of the awful etfects of drink He had experienced ti t degradation if being a drunkard hinself, and knew to the full the joys of release through the power of the Holy Spirit, from the terrible craxing for strong drink.

He was bom at Twelvetrees, a tin•nining village near Truro, Cornwall, in 1794. His mother’s lather had helped to build the first Methodist Chapel there, for he had joined the Methodists when Wesley first visited Cornwall. Billy’s father died when he was quite young, and he lived with his grandfather in a good Christian home till he was seventeen; when he went to Devonshire. It was not long before lie became addicted to drink, and was dismissed from his work, eventually going to live at a beer shop, the worst possible lodging for him at this time. "There,'’ he says, “with other drunkards, I drank all night long. But 1 had a sore head and a sick stomach, and worse than all, horrors of a kind no tongue can tell. I used to dread going to sleep for fear of waking up in hell, and, though I made many promises to the Lord, I was soon as had, or worse than ever. After being absent from my native county seven years, I returned a drunkard. When he returned to Cornwall, his wife had to fetch him home night after night from the beershop, and a great part of his wages went in drink. A friend said that he was the wildest, most daring and reck».*.s of all the reckless daring men; and ui one occasion, so fearful was his blasphemy that his wicked comrades declared his oaths must come from hell, for they smelt of sulphur. All this time his conscience tormented him and it is interesting to note tint his conversion was brought about through his reading of a book written by one who had been a blaspheming tinker. The hook was “Visions of Heaven and Hell," and its author was John Bunyan

After his conversion he went to hear a Mr. Teare lecture on Temperance, and thought that while he would hear what the speaker had to say, he would not sign the pledge, for he was not then convinced of the necessity for total abstinence, but thought, as so many people in our churches to-day, that so long as a man did not take too much, he could still drink. “But as I listened to what Mr. Teare said,”

lie Mates, “the darkness was remove*, from my mind, and I thought 1 would sign the Pledge, and before Mr. Teare had finished speaking, 1 shouted out to friend Tregaskis. “Thomas, put down my name."

From that time, lie was not only a staunch teetotaller, but an earnest advocate of the cause of Temperance. The first pay-df.v that he came home sober for many years, his wife had said, “How is it that you are home so early to-night ?’ Billy replied, “You will never see me drunk again, by the help of God.’’ He did this before his conversion, but realised at the Temperance meeting, that to keep this resolve he mus*. not lay himself open to the temptation by taking even a little strong drink. He used to say that if ever Satan caught him, it would be with t’.ie ale-pot, and in i .s picturesque speech, said: “Men set lime-sticks to catch birds, and Satan sets winebottles and ale-pots to catch fools, but I will not touch a drop, then I shall never get drunk.” Billy’s plain commor sense on this subject could do with more attention from us to-day. After all, the public house you can close i> the one beneath your nose, and I beiieve we should lay great emphasis or. pledge-signing in cur Bible Classes. I know of so many cases where it has been signed in Band of Hope and broken. It seems more important to obtain the promise at the time of adolescence, when the mind is more developed. I do not say “Eliminate Pledgt igning from our Bands of Hope,’ out let us pay more attention and la> more emphasis on it at the Bible Class, age. Total abstinence for the indivr ’ual is a weapon before which every brewer quails.

At a Temperance meeting, speaking of Moderation,, Billy Bray said, “Ye m.ght 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 he cured with moderation. Satan knows that so he sets the little pot to catch him again." Public Houses he describes as “hell houses; indeed they are! For they are places where people are prepared for hell; and they help peop’t on their way." As a contrast, lie said that Chapels were HeavenIfou.scs, for there people are converted and prepared for heaven. As 1 write this article I cannot help thinking of the very depressing conditions reported of the Chatham Islands which has been given by the resident doctor, ahd has just appeared in our local papers. In some cases more than fifty per cent, of a man's income goes in alcohol. He estimated that perhaps £IOO per week was spent

on liquor in the two hotels. Think of that spent by a population of just over 400. . A wedding or tangi was made the occasion for at least three clays’ debauchery. Small children were brought into the atmosphere of drunkenness, smoking and immorality at the earliest ages. Chatham Islands are administered by our own New Zealand Government. Why does it permit these two hotel-keepers to grow’ rich at the cost of the degradation of these people who are God’s children?

The evils of drink are always the same everywhere—the same in New Zealand and its dependencies as in Cornwall in Billy Bray’s lifetime. Many were the drunkards who w’ere saved through the Holy Spirit by Billy’s appeals at his Temperance meetings. The fact that he had been saved from the drunkard’s chains himself helped many to sec that they could also get the victory through Christ. His Temperance Crusade went hand in hand with his great evangelistic work.

He loved to tell others that lie was the son of a King, and wdien, a few hours before his death, he was asked if he had any fear of death or of being lost, he replied: “What? me fear death? me lost? Why. my-Saviour conquered death. If I were to go down to hell I would shout, ‘Glory, glory to my blessed Jesus,’ till ! made the bottomless pit ring again, and the miserable old Satan w’ould say, ‘Billy Billy, this is no [dace for thee; get thee back.’ Then up to Heaven I would go, shouting ‘Glory, glorv. Praise the Lord.’ ’’