Send The Light: A Song History
Charles H. Gabriel, born in Wilton, Iowa, in 1856, moved to California in 1887 and led the Sunday school music at Grace Methodist Church in San Francisco.[1] In his memoir Sixty Years of Gospel Song, Gabriel recalled that while he was chorister at one of the city's largest churches, the Sunday-school superintendent pressed him for a song for the school's "golden offering" on Missionary Day, and "Send the Light" was his answer.[2] Hymnary.org dates the text to 1890, which is also the year Gabriel gave for his return to songwriting, a second start he traced to this song.[3][2]
Henry Farrer, Lighthouse, etching, 1880. A lighthouse, shown for the title; the etching has no connection to the hymn.
According to Gabriel, a field secretary for missions heard it at that service and took it east, where the singing of Chaplain McCabe made it popular almost at once.[2] The song's later reach was wide: Hymnary.org counts it in 349 hymnals, set to a tune called MCCABE, and lists it as public domain.[3] Gabriel moved on to Chicago in 1892, and his output eventually ran to an estimated seven thousand compositions.[1]
Maureen Sellers arranges it in DAD tuning for Simply Gospel, Book Two, a 60-page Fingers Of Steel follow-up to her Simply Gospel, Book One that sets every piece for solo mountain dulcimer, prints the lyrics, and mixes children's songs with old-time gospel numbers.[4]
