The history of direct effort to reach the great Arabian peninsula begins with Henry Martyn. It is deeply interesting to follow the gradual unfoldings of the Divine Providence in the reintroduction of the gospel into Arabia thirteen centuries after Christianity had been blotted out in that land by the sword of Mohammed and his successors. In more than one sense Henry Martyn was the pioneer missionary to Arabia. He first came into contact with the Arabs through his study of their language and his employment of that remarkable character, Sabat, as his munshee and co-worker. Sabat and his friend Abdullah were two Arabs of notable pedigree, who, after visiting Mecca, resolved to see the world. They first went to Cabul, where Abdullah entered the service of the famous Ameer Zeman Shah. Through the efforts of an Armenian Christian he abjured Islam and had to flee for his life to Bokhara. “Sabat had preceded him there and at once recognized him on the street. ‘I had no pity,’ said Sabat afterward, ‘I delivered him up to Morad Shah, the king.’ He was offered his life if he would abjure Christ. He refused. Then one of his hands was cut off and again he was pressed to recant. ‘He made no answer, but looked up steadfastly toward heaven, like Stephen, the first martyr, his eyes streaming with tears. He looked at me, but it was with the countenance of forgiveness. His other hand was then cut off. But he never changed, and when he bowed his head to receive the blow of death all Bokhara seemed to say, What new thing is this?’ Remorse drove Sabat to long wanderings, in which he came to Madras, where the government gave him the office of mufti or expounder of the law of Islam in the civil courts. At Vizagapatam he fell in with a copy of the Arabic New Testament as revised by Solomon Negri and sent out to India in the middle of last century by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. He compared it with the Koran and the truth fell on him like a flood of light. He sought baptism in Madras at the hands of the Rev. Dr. Kerr and was named Nathaniel. He was then twenty-seven years of age. When the news reached his family in Arabia, his brother set out to destroy him, and, disguised as an Asiatic, wounded him with a dagger as he sat in his house at Vizagapatam. He sent him home with letters and gifts to his mother, and then gave himself up to propagate the truth he had once in his friend Abdullah’s person, persecuted to the death.”[134] These two were doubtless the first fruits of modern Arabia to Christ.