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.