Send the Light – Charles H. Gabriel

Perhaps his seeing the ocean served as an inspiration after he moved to San Francisco on the American west coast. And, one could also say he must have been examining someone else’s travel itinerary in his bible. Those would be two circumstances that we could reasonably guess were operative in Charles Hutchinson Gabriel’s mind as he wrote out the words and music for “Send the Light” in 1890. He was the music director at the church where he’d just arrived, and there was to be a celebration with music, so naturally Gabriel was called upon for his talent and insight. A song was the result, one with a certain emphasis, appropriate for what they were commemorating, and reflective of the energy they possessed for the song’s message. Accessing Gabriel’s resources is not difficult over 100 years later, since what he had we can still see.     

The 34-year old music minister Charles Gabriel was new to the west coast and San Francisco where he arrived in 1890, but he’d had plenty of breeding and experience that prepared him for this point in his life. He was raised in a musical home in Iowa, where his father guided singing schools, so it was not unexpected that Charles would become adept on the family’s organ and follow in his father’s singing footsteps by the time he was 17. “Send the Light” was apparently his first professional work, thereby inaugurating the career of this prodigy. Grace Methodist Episcopal Church was evidently engaged in missionary work, so Gabriel generated the song to underscore the church’s efforts and inspire its members. By the words he used in its verses, we can deduce that he was reading his bible’s account of Acts 16:9-12. Was the Grace church, like Paul centuries earlier, planning a missionary effort across some body of water? One can imagine that the ‘restless wave’ (v.1) and ‘shore to shore’ (refrain) were facets of their own time, like those of Macedonia (v. 2) that called out to the apostle during his second missionary journey 18  centuries earlier. On a personal level, Gabriel’s own missionary life as a hymnist, which was just beginning, was something to highlight too. By the end of his life, he’d reportedly written some 7,000 to 8,000 songs, gifts and tools that Christendom at large today can still access to carry on the mission we all have – drawing attention to the Creator-Sustainer-Redeemer.  

Charles Gabriel’s life-story has elements that are useful for reflection by anyone who wants to do something meaningful for Him. He was obviously nurtured in a home and community that loved and appreciated him, blessing him with a gift that he used the remainder of his life. He didn’t remain in Iowa, however, but allowed that musical aptitude to transport him thousands of miles away. He later returned to the Midwest, to Chicago as he widened his experience via the Rodeheaver Publishing Company. He eventually passed into the next life in 1932 while in Hollywood, California, indicating he’d moved yet again to the west coast, far from where he’d started 76 years earlier. His Iowa-born skills took him pretty far, but he must have thought the light he wrote about as a 34-year old was the ultimate transporter. Where else do you suppose it will take us?  

These links provide a biography of the composer: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/g/a/b/gabriel_ch.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_H._Gabriel
This link provides a very brief statement regarding the song’s development and its four verses. http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/s/e/n/sendlite.htm