without my pipe. In the days of old, the Lord spoke by the mouths of his servants, the prophets; now he speaks to us by the spirit of his Son. I had not only the feeling part of religion, but I could hear the small, still voice within speaking to me. When I took the pipe to smoke, it would be applied within, ‘It is an idol, a lust; worship the Lord with clean lips.’ So, I felt it was not right to smoke. The Lord also sent a woman to convince me. I was one day in a house, and I took out my pipe to light it at the fire, and Mary Hawke—for that was the woman’s name—said, ‘Do you not feel it is wrong to smoke?’ I said that I felt something inside telling me that it was an idol, a lust, and she said that was the Lord. Then I said, ‘Now, I must give it up, for the Lord is telling me of it inside, and the woman outside, so the tobacco must go, love it as I may.’ There and then I took the tobacco out of my pocket, and threw it into the fire, and put the pipe under my foot, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’ And I have not smoked since. I found it hard to break off old habits, but I cried to the Lord for help, and he gave me strength, for he has said, ‘Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee.’ The day after I gave up smoking I had the toothache so bad that I did not know what to do. I thought this was owing to giving up the pipe, but I said I would never smoke again, if I lost every tooth in my head. I said, ‘Lord, thou hast told us My yoke is easy and my burden is light,’ and when I said that, all the pain left me. Sometimes the thought of the pipe would come back to me very strong; but the Lord strengthened me against the habit, and, bless his name, I have not smoked since.”
Bray’s biographer writes that after he had given up smoking, he thought that he would chew a little, but he conquered this dirty habit, too.