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 Abdallah’s person, persecuted to the death. He became one of the translating staff of the Serampore brotherhood, and did good service on the Arabic and Persian Scriptures. Mr. John Marshman, who knew him well, used to describe him as a man of lofty station, of haughty carriage, and with a flowing black beard. Delighted with the simple life and devotion of the missionaries, he dismissed his two Arab servants, and won the affection of all. When Serampore arranged to leave to Henry Martyn the Persian translation of the New Testament, Sabat left them with tears in his eyes for Dinapore. In almost nothing does the saintliness of Martyn appear so complete as in the references in his Journal to the pride, the vanity, the malice, the rage of this ‘artless child of the desert,’ when it became apparent that his knowledge of Persian and Arabic had been over-estimated. The passages are pathetic, and are equalled only by those which, in the closing days of his life, describe the dying missionary’s treatment by his Tartar escort. But to the last, Sabat, according to Colonel MacInnes of Penang,[27] ‘never spoke of Mr. Martyn without the most profound respect, and shed tears of grief whenever he recalled how severely he had tried the patience of this faithful servant of God. He mentioned several anecdotes to show with what extraordinary sweetness Martyn had borne his numerous provocations. “He was less a man,” he said, “than an angel from heaven.”’
The rest of Sabat’s story may at once be told. Moved by rage at the exposure, by the Calcutta moonshis, of the incorrectness of his Arabic, and at the suspicions that his translations were copies from some old version, Sabat apostatised by publishing a virulent attack on Christianity. ‘As when Judas acted the traitor, Ananias the liar, and Simon Magus the refined hypocrite, so it was when Sabat daringly departed from the nominal profession of the truth. The righteous sorrowed, the unrighteous triumphed; yet wisdom was justified of her children,’ wrote Mr. Sargent. He left Calcutta as a trader for Penang, where he wrote to the local newspaper declaring that he professed Christianity anew, and he entered the service of the fugitive Sultan of Acheen, on the north of Sumatra. Thence, when he was imprisoned by the insurgents, he wrote letters with his own blood to the Penang authorities, declaring that he was in some sense a martyr for Christ. All the private efforts of Colonel MacInnes to obtain his freedom were in vain; he was tied up in a sack and thrown into the sea. In the light of these events we must now read Henry Martyn’s Journal:
1807, August 24.—To live without sin is what I cannot expect in this world, but to desire to live without it may be the experience of every hour. Thinking to-night of the qualifications of Sabat, I felt the conviction, both in reflection and prayer, of the power of God to make him another St. Paul.
November 10.—The very first day we began to spar. He would come into none of my plans, nor did I approve of his; but I gave way, and by yielding prevailed, for he now does everything I tell him.... Sabat lives and eats with me, and goes to his bungalow at night, so that I hope he has no care on his mind. On Sunday morning he went to church with me. While I was in the vestry a bearer took away his chair from him, saying it was another gentleman’s. The Arab took fire and left the church, and when I sent the clerk after him he would not return. He anticipated my expostulations after church, and began to lament that he had two dispositions, one old, the other new.
1808, January 11.—Sabat sometimes awakes some of the evil parts of my nature. Finding I have no book of Logic, he wishes to translate one of his compositions, to instruct me in that science. He is much given to contradict, and set people right, and that he does with an air so dogmatical, that I have not seen the like of it since I left Cambridge. He looks on the missionaries at Serampore as so many degrees below him in intellect, that he says he could write so deeply on a text, that not one of them would be able to follow him. So I have challenged him in their name, and to-day he has brought me the first half of his essay or sermon on a text: with some ingenuity, it has the most idle display of school-boy pedantic logic you ever saw. I shall translate it from the Persian, in order to assist him to rectify his errors. He is certainly learned in the learning of the Arabs, and how he has acquired so much in a life so active is strange, but I wish it could be made to sit a little easier on him. I look forward to St. Paul’s Epistles, in hopes some good will come to him from them. It is a very happy circumstance that he did not go to preach at his first conversion; he would have entangled himself in metaphysical subjects out of his depth, and probably made shipwreck of his own faith. I have, I think, led him to see that it is dangerous and foolish to attempt to prove the doctrine of the Trinity by reason, as he said at first he was perfectly able to do.
January 30.—Sabat to-day finishes St. Matthew, and will write to you on the occasion. Your letter to him was very kind and suitable, but I think you must not mention his logic to him, except with contempt; for he takes what you say on that head as homage due to his acquirements, and praise to him is brandy to a man in a high fever. He loves as a Christian brother; but as a logician he holds us all in supreme contempt. He assumes all the province of reasoning as his own by right, and decides every question magisterially. He allows Europeans to know a little about Arithmetic and Navigation, but nothing more. Dear man! I smile to observe his pedantry. Never have I seen such an instance of dogmatical pride since I heard Dr. Parr preach his Greek Sermon at St. Mary’s, about the τὸ ὄν.
March 7.—Mirza is gone to the Mohurrum to-day: he discovers no signs of approach to the truth. Sabat creates himself enemies in every quarter by his jealous and passionate spirit, particularly among the servants. At his request I have sent away my tailor and bearers, and he is endeavouring to get my other servants turned away; because without any proof he suspects them of having persuaded the bearers not to come into his service. He can now get no bearers nor tailor to serve him. One day this week he came to me, and said that he meant to write to Mr. Brown to remove him from this place, for everything went wrong—the people were all wicked, etc. The immediate cause of this vexation was that some boxes, which he had been making at the expense of 150 rupees, all cracked at the coming on of the hot weather. I concealed my displeasure at his childish fickleness of temper, and discovered no anxiety to retain him, but quietly told him of some of the consequences of removing, so it is gone out of his mind. But Mirza happened to hear all Sabat’s querulous harangue, and, in order to vex and disgust him effectually, rode almost into his house, and came in with his shoes. This irritated the Arab; but Mirza’s purpose was not answered. Mirza began next day to tell a parcel of lies about Sabat, and to bring proofs of his own learning. The manifest tendency of all this was to make a division between Sabat and me, and to obtain his salary and work for himself. Oh, the hypocrisy and wickedness of an Indian! I never saw a more remarkable contrast in two men than in Mirza and Sabat. One is all exterior—the other has no outside at all; one a most consummate man of the world—the other an artless child of the desert.
March 28.—Sabat has been tolerably quiet this week; but think of the keeper of a lunatic, and you see me. A war of words broke out the beginning of last week, but it ended in an honourable peace. After he got home at night he sent a letter, complaining of a high crime and misdemeanour in some servant; I sent him a soothing letter, and the wild beast fell asleep. In all these altercations we take occasion to consider the extent of Christian forbearance, as necessary to be exercised in all the smaller occasions of life, as well as when persecution comes for religion. This he has not been hitherto aware of. One night in prayer I forgot to mention Mr. Brown; so, after I had done, he continued on his knees and went on and prayed in Persian for him. I was much pleased at this.
Did you read Lord Minto’s speech, and his commendation of those learned and pious men, the missionaries? I have looked upon him ever since as a nursing-father to the Church.
April 11.—It is surprising that a man can be so blinded by vanity as to suppose, as Sabat does, that he is superior to Mirza in Hindustani; yet this he does, and maintains it stoutly. I am tired of combating this opinion, as nothing comes of our arguments but strifes. Another of his odd opinions is, that he is so under the immediate influence and direction of the Spirit, that there will not be one single error in his whole Persian translation. You perceive a little enthusiasm in the character of our brother. As often as he finds himself in any difficulty, he expects a dream to set him right.