In January 1867, the editorial team of Jeter and Dickinson began their second full year of owning, editing and publishing the Religious Herald, which they had revived following “the War.” While they admitted that “our remuneration has been small,” all of the Herald's bills had been paid and they had “laid the foundation.”
Jeter and Dickinson were legends in their own time. At 19, Jeremiah Bell Jeter had been Virginia's first state missionary along with his boyhood friend, Daniel Witt. By 1867, at age 65, he had known stellar pastorates, had participated in the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention and had helped chart the course of the Foreign Mission Board. His tall, commanding presence captured attention in any congregation, but his pen carried him into a thousand nooks and crannies where the Baptist folk read his editorials.
Alfred Dickinson was only 36 in 1867. Already he had served churches in his native Louisa County and had led Virginia Baptist work in the field of Bible distribution and Sunday school development during the dark days of the War. Tall, pleasantly plump, and possessed of a ruddy complexion, Dickinson was a popular platform speaker whose wit quickly won over a crowd. He was a charming writer; yet during their joint editorship, Dickinson gathered the news, edited the contents and managed the operations while Jeter wrote most of the editorials.
For awhile, the editors moonlighted with the Herald and kept day jobs as pastors of two large Richmond congregations: Jeter at Grace and Dickinson on Church Hill at Leigh Street. Each church had over 800 members at the time.
In the editorial of Jan. 3, 1867, the men admitted that their paper was to be “free from party prejudices” and “to cherish the great interests of the Baptist family, promoting love, harmony and cooperation among them, so far as they can be secured without the sacrifice of principle or self-respect.” They also avowed to rise above sectionalism; and in time, historians observed that the Herald under Jeter and Dickinson did much to heal the wounds from the War and to bring Baptists, North and South, together in great causes.
The editors also realized that they occupied a difficult position. “Editors have a narrow path to tread,” said the lead editorial, “Whatever they may publish or refuse to publish, they can scarcely hope to avoid giving offence. We thank our friends for their kind counsels and we will endeavor to profit by them; but we must remind them that editors have to consult a great variety of tastes and views and are, like other people, a little fond of having their own way. We compel none to adopt our opinions; but request our readers to bear with us if, in some things, we should not be able to conform to their wishes.”
The editors took a look at the new year. “Great changes now, as in former times, are taking place among all nations. The world is corrupt; but corruption is no novelty. It brought the flood on the earth; but the flood did not wash it out. Kingdoms have risen and fallen, fashions have come and gone, civilization has been variously modified, and science, arts and industry have greatly increased the comforts of mankind; but human depravity has maintained its ground under all forms of government, all phases of civilization, and all dispensations of religion. It has kept pace with, if it has not outstripped, the progress of the world in knowledge and refinement.
“There is no good reason, we judge, bad as the world is, to conclude that it is worse than it was in former ages.
“Has Christianity done nothing for the world? It has done much for individuals. Thousands have been rescued from ignorance, moral bondage and guilt, and have been refined, exalted and conducted to a glorious immortality, through its heavenly influence. It must be conceded, however, that the leaven has not yet leavened the entire lump.
“In nothing does its influence more manifestly appear than in the improved social and moral condition of women. Only where the gospel sheds its light and exerts its moulding influence is woman recognized as the companion, the equal and the helper of man. Dark as the world is, it would be darker, and bad as it is, it would be worse, without the light and healing efficacy of the gospel.
“Let us seek in this year to be more entirely consecrated, in body, soul and spirit, in property, time and influence, to Christ, than we have ever been. Let us individually do our duty, and whatever may be the fate of the world, it will be well with us. Living or dying, or amid dissolving worlds, we shall be safe. Nothing on earth, or under the earth, can harm those who are in the path of duty. God walks with them and will defend them from every foe and peril. Let us individually do our duty, and whatever may be the fate of the world, it will be well with us.”
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He can be reached at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.