“And one was a soldier, and one was a priest, and one was slain by a fierce wild beast”*
by chuckofish
Today the Episcopal Church remembers Thomas Bray, Anglican priest and missionary, who died in 1730.
In 1696 Bray, an Oxford professor as well as a priest, was commissioned by the Bishop of London (Henry Compton) to report on the condition of the Church in the colony of Maryland. He spent only ten weeks in the colony, but he radically re-organized and renewed the Church there, providing for the instruction of children and the systematic examination of candidates for pastoral positions. He founded thirty-nine lending libraries and numerous schools. He fought long to get an American bishop consecrated, but failed. He founded two of our church’s most effective missionary organizations, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (now United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel), both still in operation after two and a half centuries.
Back in England, he worked for the reform of prison conditions, and for the establishment of preaching missions to prisoners. He persuaded General Oglethorpe to found an American colony (Georgia) for the settlement of debtors as an alternative to debtors’ prison. Both in Maryland and upon his return to England, he wrote and preached in defense of the rights of enslaved Africans, and of Indians deprived of their land.
O God of compassion, you opened the eyes of your servant Thomas Bray to see the needs of the Church in the New World, and led him to found societies to meet those needs: Make the Church in this land diligent at all times to propagate the Gospel among those who have not received it, and to promote the spread of Christian knowledge; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
So hats off and a toast to the good reverend Bray. He was quite a guy.
*”I sing a song of the saints of God” by Lesbia Scott (1898–1986)
dual personalities 
And he accomplished all these good works under a commission issued by a Bishop named Compton…seems to me you should include him in your toast as well. Maybe he’s a relative!
He is and I blogged about him here: https://dualpersonalities.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/william-and-mary-loved-of-old/
🙂
You guys have quite a lineage! Probably told you this before but my daughter Christine graduated William and Mary 1989…am quite familiar with it (at least as it was then).
Huzzah! He sounds like quite a guy. We need more people like him these days.
Very cool!
Our minister when we were growing up was also a Reverend Bray. Not nearly as legit though, I’ll tell you that!