Introduction

Biography

In ear­ly life he evinced a fond­ness for books and stu­dy. In 1794, he ac­cept­ed the charge of a school con­nect­ed with the Broad­mead Bap­tist church, Bris­tol, and not long af­ter he was bap­tized, and unit­ed with the church.

At the same time he en­tered the theo­lo­gic­al se­mi­na­ry at Bris­tol, and de­vot­ed him­self to the He­brew, Sy­ri­ac, and oth­er lang­uag­es. Be­com­ing in­ter­est­ed in Dr. Car­ey’s work in In­dia, he and his wife, in 1799, of­fered them­selves for mis­sion­ary ser­vice, and sailed May 29, for In­dia.

They landed at Se­ram­pore October 13, and the mis­sion was es­tab­lished there, Dr. and Mrs. Marsh­man op­en­ing a board­ing-school to aid them in the pro­se­cu­tion of their work.

In 1806, Dr. Marsh­man com­menced the stu­dy of the Chi­nese lang­uage for the pur­pose of trans­lat­ing the Scrip­tures in­to that tongue. In 1814, he pub­lished his Key to the Chi­nese Lang­uage, and in fif­teen years from the time he com­menced his stu­dy of the lang­uage he com­plet­ed the pub­li­ca­tion of the first por­tion of the Scrip­tures in the Chi­nese lang­uage, con­sist­ing of the book of Ge­ne­sis, the four Gos­pels, and Paul’s Epis­tles to the Ro­mans and Co­rin­thi­ans.

In 1826, he vis­it­ed Eng­land, and re­turned to India in 1829…In 1811, Brown Uni­ver­si­ty con­ferred up­on him the hon­or­ary de­gree of Doc­tor of Di­vi­ni­ty.

Burrage, pp. 122–23

Works

• Dissertation on the Char­ac­ters and Sounds of the Chi­nese Lang­uage, 1809
• The Works of Con­fu­ci­us, Con­tain­ing the Orig­in­al Text, with a Trans­la­tion, 1811
• A De­fence of the De­ity and Atone­ment of Je­sus Christ, 1822
• Sanskrit Gram­mar, with Hen­ry Car­ey
• Bengalee and Eng­lish Dic­tion­ary, with Hen­ry Car­ey