Gospel songwriter Charles H. Gabriel was born in Iowa on August 18, 1856. His father was a farmer and singing school teacher, and Charles received his musical education at home while growing up; when Charles was sixteen his father died, and Charles took his teaching position for the next year. He had been interested in songwriting from an early age, encouraged by his parents.He left home at seventeen and taught singing for the next several years in various places. His first song was published in 1873, followed by his first songbook, Gabriel's Sabbath School Songs, in 1877. He wrote both sacred and secular songs, as well as band music.
He lived in San Francisco for at least two years, as music director at Grace Methodist Episcopal Church in the Mission District, where he wrote Send the light, his first big success. While he often wrote both words and music for his songs, he also collaborated with many of the popular writers and composers of his time, writing either words or music. A year ago this week we saw one of these collaborations here. He became so prolific that, like Fanny Crosby, his publishers apparently asked him to adopt pseudonyms for some of his songs so that their books would not appear to have so many Charles Gabriel pieces.
I chose one of his texts to feature today because we have had an abundance of composers over the last week or so; also, this is a communion text, which is not a very common theme for gospel songs. In modern times we don't usually use frequent quotation marks like this, though they were more prevalent a hundred years ago to indicate phrases in a hymn or song which were taken from the Bible. "Whosoever will" is probably from the verse "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it." which essentially appears three times: in Matthew 16:25, Mark 8:35, and Luke 8:24. "All things are ready" is from Matthew 22:4. When first published, this text was credited to "Charlotte G. Homer," one of Gabriel's pseudonyms.
“All things are ready,” come to the feast!
Come, for the table now is spread;
Ye hungry souls, ye weary, come,
And you shall be richly fed.
Refrain
Hear the invitation,
Come, “whosoever will”;
Praise God for full salvation
For “whosoever will.”
“All things are ready,” come to the feast!
Come, for the door is open wide;
A place of honor is reserved
For you at the Savior’s side.
Refrain
“All things are ready,” come to the feast!
Leave ev’ry care and worldly strife;
Come, feast upon the love of God,
And drink everlasting life.
Refrain
Charles H. Gabriel, 1895; alt.
Tune: WHOSOEVER WILL (9.8.8.7. with refrain)
William A. Ogden, 1895
Gabriel's music was further popularized by the evangelist Billy Sunday, who used many of his songs in his campaigns (Homer Rodeheaver, whose publishing company brought out most of Gabriel's work after 1912, was also Sunday's music director).
Before his death in 1932 Charles Gabriel eventually published more than 75 collections of music: for Sunday schools, evangelical meetings, men's voices, women's voices, choir anthems, piano and organ pieces, and military bands. He wrote cantatas for both chldren and adults, musical instruction manuals, and many popular songs (the illustration below was an advertisement for his secular music). The estimate of his total number of gospel songs (presumably including the tunes he wrote for texts by others) goes as high as eight thousand, comparable to Fanny Crosby's output. Several of his songs are still known and sung today.
