By Frank Willis Barett
It was a score of years back that like friend Mays I had a call to start a denominational paper. I am not sure in my own mind how the call came, but somehow in my subconscious thinking I am lead to believe that it was a personal one.
One of the good things which came early into my young manhood was an acquaintanceship with Dr. S.B. Gambrell, which later ripened into a friendship which only ended at his death. He was my mentor in many things, and a wise counsellor, but I did not always heed his advice. Had I done so this could not have been written.
On leaving Vanderbilt I went to Mississippi to live. My brother Samuel T. Barnett being the president of The First National Bank of Vicksburg, and the owner of the Capital State Bank (now the Mississippi Bank) of Jackson. It was the latter place I first had the privilege of meeting our great Southern Baptist leader.
It was through his son, the brilliant writer whose tragic death was always a great sorrow in the life of his fond father who saw in him a bright and useful career. We became friends and shared in common many literary men and women who had left their mark on the pages of literature. He had already done some fine work in both the weeklies and monthlies.
His boy’s friendship for me was always a tie between us, and so knowing that he had experience in running a denominational paper, I wrote him for advice, and got it in his own quaint way. It was to the effect that if he had to do it over he believed he would leave it undone, or words to the same effect. It was a clear admonition not to soil my fingers with denominational ink, and yet later he got back into the fascinating game of being a religious editor.
He knew full well that nothing he could say would prevent me from making the great adventure in becoming the proprietor of a religious weekly. It was in the blood and the only relief would come from spilling ink as an editor. Sitting in the editor’s “easy chair” has had its lure not only for young men but many of the older brethren have been caught up in the same vision.
Knowing what I know is the reason I am not going to warn you that there are breakers ahead; and by the way, if the voyage was to be without danger there would be no insistent desire to make it. All that I can wish for you in your perilous undertaking is that you may have as the French say so politely, “bon voyage.” May you steer clear of the financial rocks on which many a worthy denominational craft has been wrecked, and may you escape being submarined by the terror of all religious editors, “ye delinquent.”
For 17 years I piloted my bark on the tempestuous waves of religious indifference which each week threatened to engulf it, and in spite of the high seas might still have been afloat and in command had it not been for the high price of white paper; but that is another story. But old pale if the Southwide Baptist keeps its head above water as long as did the Alabama Baptist under my control, you will not have a dull time. There will be plenty work to do and an abundance of excitement to keep you awake at the helm.
Having said this much I’ll devote the remainder of my remarks in praise of your daring, for believe me it is a big risk you are undertaking to make a paper for the whole South. Yu will have to have courage, you will have to have persistence, you will have to have many things, but the one article you cannot do without is money, money and heaps of it. Go to it and may your bank balance never fail you on a Saturday night.
From the Southwide Baptist News-Record and Ridgecrest Reporter, published weekly at Marshall, N.C., Dec. 2, 1921
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