In 1829 Anthony N. Groves, a dentist of Exeter, taking the commands of Christ literally, sold all he had and, in the spirit of Martyn, began his remarkable attempt at mission work in Bagdad. His work was stopped twice, by the plague and by persecution, and the story of his life reveals how great were the obstacles which he vainly tried to surmount.[135] From that day until long years after Northern and Eastern Arabia were waiting once more for the light. The only effort made in the Gulf was by Dr. John Wilson of Bombay who, before 1843, sent Bible colporteurs once and again by Aden and up the Persian Gulf; “he summoned the Church of Scotland to despatch a mission to the Jews of Arabia, Busrah and Bombay. A missionary was ready in the person of William Burns who afterward went to China, the support of a missionary at Aden was guaranteed by a friend and Wilson had found a volunteer ‘for the purpose of exploring Arabia’ when the disruption of the Church of Scotland arrested the movement.”[136] It was Henry Martyn’s life that inspired John Wilson in 1824. It was the Free Church of Scotland that afterward took up the work of Ion Keith Falconer the pioneer of Yemen. So God’s plans find fulfillment.[137] Even Muscat was not left without a witness in those years of waiting. It appears that the captain of an American ship which called at Muscat every year for a cargo of dates was a godly man and used to distribute Arabic Bibles and Testaments, even before the Bible Society extended its work to this place. As early as 1878 the British and Foreign Bible Society sent Anton Gibrail from Bombay to Bagdad on a colporteur-journey. And about the same time the South Russia agent of the Society, Mr. James Watt, visited Persia and Bagdad and pressed the needs of this field on the committee of the Bible Society. He was seconded in his efforts by Rev. Robert (now Canon) Bruce, a Church Missionary Society Missionary in India. Arrangements were made between the two societies by which Bible work was opened in Bagdad under the supervision of Mr. Bruce. In December, 1880, a Bible depot was opened. Since then the work has gone on continuously and extended, through the Arabian Mission, to the entire east coast of Arabia. The first reference to the needs and opportunities for work in Western Arabia appears in the Annual Report of the British Bible Society for 1886, where the opening of a Bible depot at Aden is announced with the hope that it would lead to “the circulation of the Holy Bible on a larger scale and in a variety of languages.” Ibrahim Abd el Masih was the first in charge of this depot, and his name was attached to the call for prayer from South Arabia issued after the death of Keith Falconer. Colporteurs from Egypt and from Aden of the British and Foreign Bible Society have once and again visited the Arabian Red Sea ports and penetrated to Sana, the capital of Yemen.