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Mr. Charles H. Gabriel was a great composer and musician. Gabriel loved music from a young age. He was born in Iowa on August 18, 1856 and grew up on his family farm. The lessons he learned early in life would shape him into the person he became. In fact, he was only 17 years old when he began teaching singing classes throughout the Southern, Western, and Northern states. It wasn’t long before he moved to California and became one of the greatest composers on the West Coast.

Gabriel received little to no instruction in music and developed his style of music completely on his own. He is well known for the music he composed including music for Sunday schools and evangelistic meetings. The song, “Send the Light,” is known for being one of the best missionary songs available. He published many Christmas cantatas, cantatas for adults, operettas and the cantata, “Saul, King of Israel,” the work he considered his best. His other works include many marches and waltzes for military bands, books of music for female and male voices, and books for children’s music, some of which are his most remembered works.

This great composer was known among many, but was not one to have any kind of rivalry with other musicians and composers. Hall described him as, “a very genial and kindly-spirited man. His large success has not spoiled him but seems rather to have added kindliness and helpfulness to his naturally generous disposition.” It is no wonder he had such an impact on the music community.

Calmer of the troubled heart,
Bid my unbelief depart,
Speak, and all my sorrows cease,
Speak, and all my soul is peace;

Comfort me, whene’er I mourn,
With the hope of thy return,
And till I thy glory see,
Bid me still believe in thee.

Source: https://melodypublications.com/blogs/news/charles-h-gabriel

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Pseudonyms: C. D. Emerson, Charlotte G. Homer, S. B. Jackson, A. W. Lawrence, Jennie Ree
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For the first seventeen years of his life Charles Hutchinson Gabriel (b. Wilton, IA, 1856; d. Los Angeles, CA, 1932) lived on an Iowa farm, where friends and neighbors often gathered to sing. Gabriel accompanied them on the family reed organ he had taught himself to play. At the age of sixteen he began teaching singing in schools (following in his father's footsteps) and soon was acclaimed as a fine teacher and composer. He moved to California in 1887 and served as Sunday school music director at the Grace Methodist Church in San Francisco. After moving to Chicago in 1892, Gabriel edited numerous collections of anthems, cantatas, and a large number of songbooks for the Homer Rodeheaver, Hope, and E. O. Excell publishing companies. He composed hundreds of tunes and texts, at times using pseudonyms such as Charlotte G. Homer. The total number of his compositions is estimated at about seven thousand. Gabriel's gospel songs became widely circulated through the Billy Sunday­-Homer Rodeheaver urban crusades.

Bert Polman

Source: https://hymnary.org/person/Gabriel_Charles

Born: July 4, 1840, West Fellowfield, Pennsylvania.

Died: July 9, 1907, Kinsman, Ohio.

Buried: Kinsman, Ohio.

Pseudonym: G. M. J.

The following article by Gladys Doonan, “To Reap for the Master,” appeared in Challenge, December 28, 1986. Used by permission of Regular Baptist Press, Schaumburg, Illinois.

Even the festivities of the Christmas season that December of 1876 couldn’t drive them from his mind—those notes his friend Philip had written to him just a few days before the holiday. He read them over and over again and almost decided to yield to the urging of their message—almost, but not quite. His dreams of personal ambition were still too precious. How could he give them up?

James McGranahan was a talented and cultured American musician who lived from 1840 to 1907. He was gifted with a rare tenor voice and studied for years with eminent teachers who urged him to train for a career in opera. Of course, this advice opened up to his imagination dazzling prospects of fame and fortune. And he was assured time and time again it was all within his grasp.

James McGranahan was a Christian, and he had a Christian friend Philip P. Bliss who was concerned about him. His friend was also a capable musician who had gone through many of the same experiences in his younger days as a singer. However, he had been sensitive to the claims of the Lord on his life and had yielded his talents to God for full-time Christian service.

Though only two years older than McGranahan, Philip Bliss, at 38, had a good dozen years of Christian work behind him. He was then serving as a gospel soloist with the great evangelist Major D. W. Whittle. How he thrilled to the response of the great crowds who gathered for their campaigns and to the working of the Holy Spirit through his music! He longed for his friend James to know that thrill as well!

Philip Bliss and his wife were preparing for a trip home to Pennsylvania for Christmas. There was much to be done, but in the midst of all the bustle and hurry Bliss felt strangely compelled to take time out to write McGranahan a letter. He kept thinking of his 36-year-old friend, who was still studying music, still preparing for—what? Would it be opera or would it be the Lord’s work?

Philip Bliss prayed as he wrote that he would know the right words to put down. He knew the Lord was dealing with James and was eager for his friend to make the right decision.

Finally the letter was done. Bliss, needing encouragement and approval for what he had said, read it to Major Whittle. In the letter he compared McGranahan’s long course of musical training to a man whetting his scythe for the harvest. The climax came as he strongly urged, “Stop whetting the scythe and strike into the grain to reap for the Master!”

The letter was sent on its way and quickly reached its destination. Those words touched James McGranahan as no others had before. He could think of nothing else. “Strike into the grain to reap for the Master…to reap for the Master…to reap for the Master!” Day and night those words were before him.

One week later, December 19, 1876, the man who had penned the words was dead. The train returning the Blisses from Pennsylvania to Chicago where Philip was scheduled to sing at Moody Tabernacle broke through a railroad bridge at Ashtabula, Ohio. It plunged into a 60-foot chasm and caught fire. Among the 100 who perished in the disaster were the 38-year-old gospel singer and his wife.

When James McGranahan received news of the tragedy he rushed immediately to the scene of the accident. And it was there, for the first time, that he met Major Whittle.

The evangelist later recorded his thoughts on the occasion: “Here before me stands the man that Mr. Bliss has chosen to be his successor.”

The two men made the return trip to Chicago together, and as they rode they talked. Before they reached the city James McGranahan decided to yield his life, his talents, his all to the service of his Savior. He would “strike into the grain to reap for the Master.”

The operatic world lost a star that day, but the Christian world gained one of its sweetest gospel singers. James McGranahan was greatly used in evangelistic campaigns throughout America, in Great Britain and in Ireland.

Sources

* Hall, pp. 191-5
* Hustad, p. 285

Hymns

1. Go Ye into All the World
2. O the Crown
3. Shall You? Shall I?

Music

1. Are You Coming Home Tonight?
2. Banner of the Cross, The
3. Behold, What Love!
4. Believe Ye That I Am Able?
5. Beloved, Now Are We
6. By Grace Are Ye Saved
7. Church of God Is One, The
8. Christ Liveth in Me
9. Christ Returneth
10. Come
11. Come Believing!
12. Crowning Day, The
13. El Nathan
14. Every Day Will I Bless Thee
15. Frances
16. Go Ye into All the World
17. Hallelujah for the Cross!
18. He Is Not Here, But Is Risen!
19. He Will Hide Me
20. I Find Thee So Precious
21. I Know Not the Hour
22. I Left It All with Jesus
23. I Will Pass Over You
24. I’ll Stand by until the Morning
25. Jesus Is Coming
26. Kinsman
27. McGranahan
28. My Redeemer
29. Neither Do I Condemn Thee
30. Neumeister
31. Oh, Revive Us by Thy Word
32. Preach the Gospel
33. Sometime We’ll Understand
34. There Shall Be Showers of Blessing
35. Thou Remainest
36. Thy God Reigneth!
37. Verily, I Say unto You

Source: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/m/c/g/mcgranahan_j.html

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