The 12th essay in A Noble Company, volume 11, is on James Bruton Gambrell (1841-1921)

J. B. Gambrell was one of the foremost leaders of Southern Baptists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A veteran of the Civil War, he helped to define the kind of denomination that would be necessary to serve the interests of Baptists at the local and national levels of association. Throughout his ministry, he served in church pastorates, newspaper editorial chairs, a college presidency, seminary faculty, state mission board director, and president of the Southern Baptist Convention, among other notable positions. Reputed for his orthodoxy and loyalty to the Baptists of the southern United States, Gambrell was surprisingly ahead of his time in his vision for an inclusive and effective denomination that might advance the interests of local churches. --A. G. Winters