Marshall, 'William, a Presbyterian minister, was born in Perthshire, Scotland, in 1789 ; was educated and studied divinity at Glasgow ; was licensed by the Pres- bytery of Dysart, Scotland ; preached a number of years at Calinshow, Fifeshire, and in 1832 came to America, and was installed pastor of the Church at Peekskill, N. Y. In 1843, when the marriaye question engaged the attention and called forth not a Utile of the talent and Biblical lore of the Church, he made the argument in that relation befure the Synod of New York, which was afterwards published under the title, .4;* Inquiry cun- cerniny the Lau fulness <f Marriage between Parties pre- viously related by Affini/y ; also a short History of Opin- ions in diferent Ayes aiul Countries, and of the A ction of the Ecclesiastical Bodies on that Subject. He died in
1864. ]\Ir. Marshall possessed tine analytical powers, comprehensive and penetrating; his sermons were re- markably exact, his manner rather studied. See Wilson, Presh. llist. Almanac, 1865, p. 99 ; Sprague, Ann. Amer. Pulpit, ix, 7. (J. L. S.)
Marsham, Sir John, an English scholar, celebra- ted for his acquirements in history, languages, and chro- nology, was born in London in 1602, and was educated at St. John's College, Oxford. He embraced the cause of the Royalists in the civil war. He died in 1685. He was the author of a work entitled Chronoloyicus Canon ■'Egyptiacus, Ebraicus, etc. (Lond. 1672, fol.), in which he attempts to reconcile Egyptian chronology with the Hebrew Scriptures, by supposing four collateral dynas- ties of Egyptian kings reigning at the same time. This theory has been adopted by several eminent scholars. He also wrote the preface to the first volume of Di.g- dale's Monasticon Anglicanum, and left behind him at his death, unfiiiished, Canonis chi'onici liber quintus : sive, Imperium Peisicum: — De j7rovi?iciis et leyionibus Romanis : — De re numeraria; etc. We are likewise in some measure obliged to him for the History of Phi- losophy by his very learned nephew, Thomas Stanley, Esq., since it was chiefly at his instigation that that excellent work was undertaken. See Wood, Athence Oxonienses ; Shuckford, Sacred and Profane History; Gen. Biog. Diet. s. v.
Marshman, Joshua, D.D., a noted English Bap- tist missionary to India, one of the " Serampore Breth- ren," as the band of missionaries among whom he and Dr. Carey were the most prominent often styled them- selves, the person who, above all others, ga\"e to the English Protestant mission in India the strength, con- sistency, and prudence which it wanted, was born in 1767, at Westbury Leigh, in Wiltshire. While yet a lad, Joshua Marshman attracted attention by his pas- sion for reading, and his quiet, heartfelt religion. His parents were poor, and he had to struggle hard to securei an education. In 1794 he became master of a school at Bristol, at the same time entering himself a student at " Bristol Academy," where he studied thoroughly Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. His mind became imbued at this time with the missionary spirit which the noted English cobbler, Carey, was spreading in England, and in 1799 Marshman offered to become one of the party sent out to India by the " Baptist Missionary Society," to further the cause wliich Carey was advo- cating. Oct. 13, 1799, the company found themselves sixteen miles above Calcutta, at Serampore, on the Hooghly, "a town pleasantly situated, beautiful to look at, and full of a mixed population of Danes, Dutch, Eng- lish, and natives of all hues." The intention was to proceed to British ground, Serampore being at that lime Danish territory'; but the Anglo-Indians objected to Christian missionarj- enterprises in their midst, and the mission was finally established at Serampore, to spread thence, in God's own appointed time, the truths of his Gospel among the benighted of all India. The fate of the missionary enterprise has been spoken of in the ar- ticle India (q. v.) ; the activity of each member in the biographical sketches of these faithful servants of Clirist [see Cakky; Ward, Thomas] ; we can here deal only with the part Joshua Marshman himself played in this, one of the most important of missionary enterprises.
Marshman had married the daughter of a Baptist minister before he became teacher at Bristol; his wife now accompanied him to India, and proved a helpmeet indeed from the very outset. Shortly after landing at Serampore, finding the support granted by the home society inadequate to the wants of the colony, Jlarsh- man, with the assistance of his wife, opened two board- ing-schools for European children, and, succeeding even beyond their most sanguine expectations in securing not only a support for themselves, but a maintenance of the mission, shortly after opened a school for the na- tives also, which was quickly tilled ; and the pecuniary
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return of this enterprise, together with the additional income which Carey received for his services as an in- structor in tlie government college at Fort William, en- abled these good people in a short time to render their mission nearly independent of home support. The Bap- tists of England, however, failed to appreciate these heroic and self-sacrificing labors of Carey, and Marsh- man, and Ward, and much fault was Ibund by the com- mittee of the general society. " There were among them many men of good intentions, but without breadth of views, and used to small economies. They listened to false reports, censured without sufficient information, pinched their missions, and dictated the management, so that to deal with them was but a vexation of spirit. . . . Moreover, the American subscribers [American Baptists joined their English brethren until Judson went out from the American society] sent a most vex- atious and absurd remonstrance against any part of their contributions for training young men to the ministry being employed in teachuig science. 'As if,' said Dr. Marshman, 'youths in America could be educated for ministers witliout learning science.' "