There is a world beyond the borders of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Sometimes this thought challenges the sensibilities of the most provincial among us, yet Virginia Baptists have been exploring that larger land for a long, long time.
Luther Rice, the pioneer missionary, kindled an interest among Virginia Baptists in world missions and he also strengthened the American Baptists by publishing a newspaper called the Columbian Star, which was welcomed into many Virginia Baptist homes beginning in 1822.
Henrietta Hall Shuck, the first Baptist female missionary to China from America, wrote letters home to Virginians, picturing the culture of the Orient; and she even wrote a book on the subject. James B. Taylor, a Richmond pastor, developed the Foreign Mission Board when the Southern Baptist Convention was young and promoted a world consciousness for his fellow Virginians.
Fred Anderson
|
Robert Healy Pitt, a visionary editor of the Religious Herald, was the first of his fellow Baptist editors to advocate for the establishment of a worldwide Baptist fellowship; and when the Baptist World Alliance was formed in 1905, his desk at the Religious Herald became the stateside office for the new organization.
The Religious Herald, which we sometimes identify to our non-Baptist friends as “our state Baptist newspaper,” has been around for a long time itself. It began publishing when John Quincy Adams was president! It has published continuously ever since its founding in 1828.
Someone who had a knack for such knowledge claimed that it was the oldest religious newspaper in the United States published continuously in the same city and under the same name. (Notice all of the qualifiers in the foregoing sentence.)
From its very beginning and all through the ages, the Herald recognized that the city and state of its address was not its limitation.
The Herald early developed a readership beyond the borders of Virginia. We also must remember that Virginia itself had larger borders prior to the Civil War. The Herald was a curious and welcomed mixture both of a decidedly-denominational paper yet with wider interests, including farm reports, book reviews, children’s material and advertisements for everything under the sun.
The Herald had subscribers all across the United States. In the 19th century educated ministers of whatever denomination liked to receive several newspapers from different sources. Many Baptists across America regularly read the Herald alongside “the Baptist paper” in their own state. It was a time of intense denominational interest and loyalties as well as interest in the world beyond one’s own yard. In an age before radio, television and internet, the print media was the only way and it provided a window on the world.
There were other Baptist newspapers — many of them — and they had their subscribers and enthusiasts; but the Religious Herald always ranked among the top tier. The editors of other papers frequently reprinted Herald stories or quoted the Herald’s editor.
In times of fierce controversy, Baptists beyond the borders of Virginia wondered what the Herald will have to say about a subject. There have been several substantial controversies, including Campbellism in the early 1800s; the question in the 1840s of appointing slave owners as missionaries, which prompted the rift which split Baptists in the North and South; and the late unpleasantness which our generation simply labeled “the Controversy” which divided Southern Baptists. In every case, the Herald was at the forefront in reporting and interpreting.
The Herald was always “our paper” yet it never really belonged to Virginia Baptists. It began as a proprietary newspaper owned by an individual and so remained for its first some 125 years. In 1950 a publishing association was created, and while a relationship was formed with the Baptist General Association of Virginia, the paper remained independent.
In 1828, William Crane, a Richmond businessman, loaned William Sands $677 to buy equipment, including a press, and the enterprising editor turned the publishing venture into a livelihood.
Sands was reared in an English Baptist home where by the age of 12 he already had read many Baptist books. He was a Baptist layman described by his successor, the noted Jeremiah Bell Jeter, as “sound and earnest but not a bigoted and intolerant Baptist.” In Richmond, he joined the Second Baptist Church; and during his lifetime, he made friendships with the city’s African-Americans, helping to establish two churches operated by blacks.
In the evacuation fire of April 1865, the Herald lost everything — its files, back issues and equipment. The only thing that remained was its name and its goodwill. William Sands was in his mid-70s, which at the time truly was old age. He did not have the strength to rebuild the paper. Jeremiah Bell Jeter; his wife, Catherine “Kate” Jete;, and Alfred E. Dickinson purchased the paper’s good name and mailing list.
Jeter and Dickinson were Baptist preachers by background. Jeter had been one half of the “Bedford Plowboys” team which served as the first state missionaries of the Baptist General Association of Virginia in the 1820s; and in the meantime, he rose to prominence.
Jeter was a self-taught journalist but he was more than a writer and editor. He wanted to reach in person and through his paper beyond the borders of Virginia and to help reunite the nation. He had been present at the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention yet he envisioned a reunion of Baptists in the United States which never materialized. He sometimes was criticized by unreconstructed Southerners for promoting the resources of the American Baptist Publication Society. Some critics dared to claim that Jeter was a puppet of the Northerners and “a mere agent for bringing the patronage of the South” to the American Baptist Publication Society.
Dickinson also went beyond the borders to do fundraising on behalf of “the Baptist school,” Richmond College. He gained some notoriety as a speechmaker in gatherings of wealthy Northern Baptists where he hoped to influence both reconciliation and philanthropy.
Robert Healy Pitt had been a “junior editor” under Dickinson; and when he became editor, he continued to set a standard that reached beyond Virginia. He championed Baptist views of religious liberty and separation of church and state and used his editorial pen, his personal correspondence and his wide influence to keep the time-honored principles known far and wide.
When he went to London for the first Congress of the Baptist World Alliance, Pitt had figuratively and literally gone beyond the borders. He even meddled. He visited Westminster Abbey and suggested that a memorial be placed there to John Bunyan, the English Baptist hero. It was done. Now that’s an influence beyond time, space and borders.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies, located on the campus of the University of Richmond. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.