When he arose from his knees, he exclaimed emphatically, “My dear sister, you must not go tomorrow. God has just told me you must not go.” She was surprised, disappointed and certainly confused, because her plans were all made. However, she dared not ignore the warning of the man she knew to be in close touch with God. So, inconvenient though it was, she allowed him to accompany her to the ship and remove her luggage.

“The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.” God’s servant had dwelt too constantly in the Lord’s presence to miss the divine directive. Six weeks later, word reached England that the ship, with all on board, had been lost.

William Bramwell was born in February, 1759, in the village of Elswick near Preston, Lancashire. He was a member of a large family. His parents were staunch adherents of the Church of England, and attempted to rear their children in accordance to a strict code of morality.

A love for truth manifested itself in William after he had become an apprentice to a currier at the age of fifteen. Asked by his employer to confirm to a prospective customer the worth of a certain item, the boy spoke out bluntly, “No, Sir, the quality of that leather is not so good as you have represented it.” How the boss reacted, we are not told, but this and other similar incidents being circulated, the lad gained quite a reputation for truthfulness.

But such a standing before men could not bring peace to his heart. He was a sinner, and he knew it only too well. He was a sober-minded young man and by faithful church attendance and good works endeavoured to earn his salvation. Hatred for immorality pressed the youth to enter into the public houses to persuade some of the most degraded men to leave their lives of vice. But within his heart, the tempest raged, as evil tempers and memories of past sins continually harassed him. Bodily austerities, such as kneeling with bare knees on sand, remind us of the monks of the Dark Ages.

For a time, he attempted to embrace Catholicism, but soon returned to the Church of his fathers. He spent hours in the attitude and posture of prayer, being especially devout before receiving the sacrament in the local church. God saw his hunger and, while the ceremony was being performed, his soul-cry was answered. In a moment, the way of salvation by faith in Christ opened up to him, and he found pardon and peace.

Having no spiritual instructor and being ignorant of Satan’s devices, young Bramwell joined a group of church singers. These were merely nominal Christians and even met in a large room in a public house. Here frivolity and worldly entertainment soon had is deadening effect upon the young convert. He lost the comfort of the sense of sins forgiven.

Urged by a young Methodist preacher to attend services held by that sect, he flatly refused. He had heard nothing but ill of them, and his father considered them deceivers and wolves in sheep’s clothing. But later, hearing a Catholic woman defaming the Methodists, it dawned upon William that these were true followers of the despised Master and that the opposition of Satan and the world only proved their genuineness.

Just a few humble people assembled at the first service he attended. His heart was warmed. He said of the sermon, “O, this is the preaching I have long wanted to hear. These are the people with whom I am resolved to live and die.”

Soon after, the little band was visited by their founder, John Wesley. That night, Mr. Bramwell again found the comfort he had lost, and from that time was enabled to walk continually in the light of God’s countenance. But he strongly felt the need of a deeper work within his heart. His very activities and much time spent in the presence of a holy God revealed to him the corruption of his natural heart.

How he sought and found the victory for which he longed, is best told by himself:

“I was for sometime convince of my need of purity and sought it carefully with tears, entreaties and sacrifice, thinking nothing too much to do or suffer, if I might but attain this pearl of great price. Yet I found it not, nor knew the reason why until the Lord showed me I had erred in the way of seeking it.

“I did not seek it by faith alone but, as it were, by ‘the works of the law.’ Being now convinced of my error, I sought the blessing by faith only. Still it tarried a little, but I waited for it in the way of faith. When in the house of a friend at Liverpool, while I was sitting with my mind engaged in various meditations concerning my affairs and future prospects, my heart now and then lifted up to God, but not particularly about this blessing. Heaven came down to my soul. The Lord for Whom I had waited, came suddenly to the temple of my heart, and I had an immediate evidence that this was the blessing I had for some time been seeking. My soul was then all wonder, love and praise.”

During a fifteen-mile walk to a preaching appointment that night, the enemy whispered all the way, “Do not profess sanctification, for thou shalt lose it.” But the Lord won and, during his message, Bramwell told boldly and to the glory God, what great things had been done for his soul.

This was the commencement of one of the most fragrant walks with God we read of anywhere. Stripped of all self-confidence, Bramwell realized that there was no holiness apart from a life of constant communion with his heavenly Father. Two great passions literally ate him up. The first was to be in God’s presence continuously. “I am giving myself to prayer,” he emphasized over and over in his letters and journals.

Along with this deep love for God’s presence, came a great longing for the salvation of the lost. Prayer, prayer and more prayer was followed by intense labour for the souls of men in many of the large circuits in Northern England. Sleep, food, health – all were sacrificed to these two great loves.

When he was twenty-eight years of age, Mr. Bramwell married Miss E. Byrom. We know little of his family life but at least two children, a son and a daughter, blessed the union. His letters to his daughter, Ann, are full of fatherly love and admonition.

His first appointment was to Blackburn, then Colne and on to Dewsbury. Of his service in and about Dewsbury, Yorkshire, it has been written:

“He gave himself to continual prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and was constant in season, out of season. In this work, he sought the cooperation of all who would unite with him and appointed prayer meetings at five o’clock in the morning. Such efforts could not be in vain.”

Mr. Bramwell remarks:

“As I was praying in my room, I received an answer from God in a particular way and had the revival discovered to me in its manner and effects. I had no more doubt. All my grief was gone. I could say, ‘The Lord will come. I know He will come and that suddenly.’ And, indeed, that is exactly what did happen very soon.”

After two weeks of visiting the various societies in the Sheffield circuit, he wrote,

“After diligent search, I have not found one person that knows the virtue of Christ’s all-cleansing blood. Yet there is a great friendship, and it appears I am received by the people with much respect. I have seen nearly twenty set at liberty, I believe I should have seen many more, but I cannot find one pleading man. There are many good people, but I have found no wrestlers with God.

“O pray that I may see His arm laid bare in this place. After twelve hours groaning and using every means, God has opened blind eyes. I never saw the power of God more visibly displayed.”

Twelve hundred and fifty members were added to the Society in the course of his first year’s labour in his circuit. Removing to Nottingham, this man of prayer wrote:

“I am all weakness; indeed, I see nothing will do but a continual dependence and a living upon His mercy. And O the depth of mercy! It is continual prayer that brings the soul into all the glory.”

Later, in the same city, we are told

“I am striving with continual prayer to live nearer to God than I have ever done, and He brings my soul into closer union. I live with Jesus; He is my all. I am less than nothing in His sight. This walking with God, this conversation in Heaven! O how I am ashamed! I sink in silent love. I wonder how the Lord has borne with me for so long. I never had such a view of God and myself. I pray that every moment of my life may show forth His praise.”

Is it any wonder that the Societies were doubling during Bramwell’s stay in Nottingham?

In Leeds, there was a repetition of the same need, the same intercession, the same blessing. Hull was his next appointment. He writes,

“I have had three weeks of agony, but now see the Lord working. I have not preached lately without seeing some fruit of my labour. The Lord is saving souls.”

While he was in Hull, a friend offered him the use of a large parlour that overlooked the Humber. To this room, he would retire for prayer and quiet, and his host said of his visits: “He was wont to resort frequently to it and spend two, three, four, five and sometimes six hours in prayer and reflection. He often entered the room at nine o’clock in the morning and did not leave it till three in the afternoon. The days on which his longest visits occurred were, I conjecture, his appointed fasts. On these occasions, he refused any kind of refreshment and used to say when he came in, ‘Now, take no notice of me.’”

God did a great work through His servant in Sunderland as well and, little wonder, when we read the following:

“How is it that the soul being of such value, and God so great, eternity so near, and yet we are so little moved? Perhaps you can answer me this. Never was I so much struck with the Word of God as at present. The truth, the depth, the promises quite swallow me up. I am lost in wonder and praise. My soul enters into Christ in His blessed Book. His own sayings take faster hold on me than ever. I could read, and weep, and love, and suffer! Yes, what could I not suffer when I thus see Him?”

“Justification is great; to be cleansed is great; but what is justification, or the being cleansed, when compared to this being taken into Himself? The world, the noise of self, is all gone, and the mind bears the full stamp of God’s image. Here you talk and walk and live, doing all in Him and to Him, continuing in prayer and turning all into Christ in every house, in every company.”

But this saint of God was no more exempt from very fierce conflicts than we are.

“I see the greatest necessity of purity in the outward man. To keep the whole requires constant prayer, watching and looking to Christ. I mean that the soul never be diverted from Him for one moment; but that I view Him in all my acts, take hold of Him as the instrument by which I do all my work and feel that nothing is done without Him.”

“To seek men, the world, or self, or praise is so shocking to my view at present, that I wonder we are not all struck dead when the least of this comes upon us. I know immediately when I grieve my Lord; the Spirit speaks within. To do wrong in the clear light is the great offence. My soul is subject to sloth, and I have work, I assure you, to keep all things at full speed.”

To another, he writes from Sunderland:

“O how Satan will tempt you to lie in bed these cold mornings, when you should be engaged in prayer and in your study every morning at five o’clock or before. By this practise, what wonders you would do with God, with the Word, with your soul and for your family! O arise, my dear brother; you will soon be gone!”

To young ministers, Mr. Bramwell gave this counsel:

“You may be spared to spread the sacred fire when I am in Glory. I am confident much more prayer must be practised and to greater purpose. In this I receive every day a greater portion of good from God. I never stood in greater need of praying without ceasing.”

His accent on early rising appears again and again. Surely it is no mystery why this man had such power with God and man.

“Do you rise about four o’clock every morning? And in order to do this, do you retire to rest as soon as your work and meals are over, or do you sit and chat with the people? Do you give yourself to reading and prayer? I say, Give, give yourself to these. Are you never in company above an hour at once? When in company, do you turn all into profit – into religion?”

His biographer says, “Several of his friends with whom he lodged in the country witnessed, when he left his room in the morning and came to breakfast, that his hair was bedewed with perspiration, as if he had been engaged in the extremity of manual labour. These efforts produced their natural results, and such a wrestling Jacob became a prevailing Israel.”

As the end of his earthly ministry approached, the tempo of his prayer life and service increased greatly. From his last appointment, he writes:

“I must tell you I am more given to prayer than ever. I feel myself just on the brink of eternity and am sensible I can change nothing when I am gone. This idea being so much with me, I am working with all my might.

“Forgive me, when I say to you that my life is now prayer. I feel the need of this continually and can only live in this duty. I hope you will join in this, though absent in the body. A little while, and He will come. You and I will soon have done.”

Toward the close of his life, this man of prayer arrived at some very pointed conclusions, which might be applied to the Church of the present day with equal appropriateness.

“The reason why the Methodists in general do not live in this salvation is there is too much sleep, too much meat and drink, too little fasting and self-denial, too much conversation with the world, too much preaching and hearing and too little self-examination and prayer.

“A number of Methodists now will be in public the whole of the Sabbath; and, if they heard angels all the time, they would be backsliders. It is astonishing how the devil is cheating us, at the same time, filling for a moment our heads and emptying our hearts.”

“What shall we do? How shall we return? Is it possible to bring the body back by the same way or into the same way? I fear not. I sometimes nearly lose my hope. In all churches, till the present time, Satan has used outward splendour to darken the inward glory. Is it too late to see, to know, to understand the temptations of the devil?”

William Bramwell, at the close of the Methodist Conference, died in Leeds. The last night of his life, he remarked to a group of friends, “It strikes me that one of us will be gone in three or four months.” After retiring to his room, he was overheard praying with great earnestness. Again, at two o’clock in the morning, he was pleading with God. Coming downstairs half an hour later, he said to the servant girl who was there, “Praise the Lord! Glory be to God!” He prayed with her before leaving the house and, soon after, not far away, he was found, apparently very ill, by two policemen. Sending one of them for help, he gasped, “Be quick; I shall not be here long.” And so he passed to be with his wonderful Lord with Whom he had communed for so many years. This dear man of God was not yet sixty, but what a legacy he has left all posterity from that day to this!

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