Rev. Robert Marshall (1760-1833)
He was born in County Down, Ireland, November 27th, 1760, and in the twelfth year of his age accompanied his family to Western Pennsylvania. He enlisted, at the age of sixteen, as a private soldier during the Revolutionary War, and was in six general engagements, one of which was the hard-fought battle of Monmouth, where he narrowly escaped with his life, a bullet grazing his locks. After his conversion, when about twenty-three years old, he commenced preparation for the ministry. His academical studies were conducted under Mr. Graham, at Liberty Hall, Virginia; his theological course under Dr. McMillan. After being licensed by Redstone Presbytery, he returned to Virginia, and labored in the revival, with great zeal and success. He was remarkable for his fidelity in visiting and conversing upon religion. In 1791 he removed to Kentucky with his wife, in the capacity of a missionary of the Synod, and on the 13th day of June, 1793, was ordained pastor of Bethel and Blue Spring churches. He also conducted a classical school, at which many received their education. Afterwards he made a very prominent figure in the world.
In the great revival of 1800 Mr. Marshall was one of the chief leaders, and carried away by the torrent of enthusiasm that swept over Kentucky, and sincerely believing his more sober brethren to be wrong, he joined with Stone, in 1803, in fomenting the New light Schism. He afterwards saw his error, and in 1811 returned to the bosom of the church. He took an appointment under the Assembly's Standing Committee of Missions in 1812, and was soon after reinstated in his old charge of Bethel, where he continued, till his decease, in 1833, at the advanced age of seventy-three. He afterward said "that he could not ascribe his conduct to any other cause than a strange infatuation; and for years never mounted the pulpit without lamenting his errors, and warning the people against similar delusions." Davidson says of his: "As a preacher, he was clear, logical, systematic, and adhered closely to his text. He was of a coarse, strong mind, rather of a metaphysical turn; rash and impetuous in his temper. He delighted in startling expressions and the use of language adapted to rouse and impress an audience. His popularity as a leader of the New Lights was for a time unbounded, thousands and thousands hanging on his lips at their camp meetings. His constitutional temperament predisposed him to an ascetic sort of enthusiasm, and to fall the prey of errors, which assumed the guise of superior sanctity. He was present at the first meeting of the Synod of Kentucky at Lexington, Kentucky in 1802 and was designated a member of the West Lexington Presbytery. See the discussion of the secession, Rev. Richard McNemar.