Jerry and Linda Butler

NICHOLAS ROWAN MARR

Nicholas Rowan Marr, son of N. L. and Sarah A. Marr, nee Perkins, was born June 25, 1850, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. but brought up in Franklin, Tenn. He professed religion in boyhood, and joined the Presbyterian Church with his mother. Later in life he was impressed with the duty of preaching the gospel, but feeling that he could not conscientiously teach the doctrines of the Presbyterian Church, he united with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with whose doctrines, government, and usages he was fully satisfied.

In 1885 be joined the Memphis Conference, and in due time was received into full connection and ordained deacon and elder.

Brother Marr was married three times. First, to Miss Mattie Busby, of Texas; next, to Miss Alice Gillespie, of West Tennessee, and finally, to Miss Virginia Butler, of Decatur County, Tenn. She and five children are left to mourn his loss.

The life of our dear, departed brother was characterized by self-denial, self-sacrifice, moral courage and fidelity. He was faithful until death, and would have been faithful unto death. The crowning grace of his character was humility. In honor he preferred others to himself. He was "clothed with humility." Like his Lord, he was "meek and lowly in heart."

As a minister of grace to guilty men, Brother Marr "studied to show himself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed." Industrious, studious and well educated, he made rapid progress in the attainment of sacred and divine knowledge. He was a good theologian, well read in the history of the Christian Church, and especially in the history of Methodism. He preached the gospel in its purity, and with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. God gave him success in winning souls to Christ. At the fourth Quarterly Conference, on his last circuit, he reported seventy-one conversions during the quarter.

His zeal was a flaming fire that burned continually. I met him a few weeks before his death, and noticed that he was looking worn and weary. On inquiry I learned that, in addition to his other labors, he had just preached twenty-two sermons in eight days. As the sainted Summerfield once said, he was the "'slave" of Jesus and the "slave" of his people.

He fell at his post in Hollow Rock, Tenn., on Friday night, November 8, 1895. Thank God, he died in the faith and in the sweet hope of heaven. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace."

WELLBORN MOONEY

Minutes of the Memphis [Methodist] Conference, pages 61-62

GENEALOGICAL ABSTRACTS FROM REPORTED DEATHS,
THE NASHVILLE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, 1894-1896
By Jonathan Kennon Thompson Smith
Copyright, Jonathan K. T. Smith, 2002