My Saviour’s Love - Charles H. Gabriel

The words and music of this gospel song were written by Charles H. Gabriel, who was considered the most popular gospel-song writer of the early 20th century. Gabriel’s songs reflected a change that was taking place in congregational singing. Hymns of the 1800s were often meditative and well-suited for Sunday worship services, but as the large revival meetings such as D.L.Moody and Billy Sunday were held, a different style of sacred song was needed. Many people who attended those meetings didn’t go to church. The use of Gabriel’s energetic and easy-to-learn evangelistic songs was quite successful.

Charles H. Gabriel was born in 1856 in rural Iowa, and he attended a country school. As a young boy, he showed a great interest in music and a gift for composing. His family bought a small pump organ, which he learned to play, and when he was only 16, he began to conduct singing schools and to compose and publish his songs. By the time he was twenty, his music was widely known. From 1912 until his death in 1932, he was the music editor of the Rodeheaver Publishing Company. It’s estimated that he wrote between seven and eight thousand songs during his lifetime. He often used several pseudonyms; the most common was Charlotte G. Homer.

“My Saviour’s Love” was first published in the 1905 “Praises” hymnal. The song is sometimes published under the title “I Stand Amazed in the Presence.” This song speaks of the believer’s amazement at Christ’s love, suffering, and atoning sacrifice.  The second and third stanzas express Christ’s suffering as recorded in Luke’s gospel. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22: 41-44).

The victorious final verse is a picture of the day when those who have been redeemed will sing praises to the Lord around His heavenly throne. “How marvelous! How Wonderful!” Charles Gabriel must have felt the same amazement and joy as Charles Wesley did more than one hundred fifty years earlier when he wrote, "Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?”  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8).

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