SOME few years ago a Swedish chaplain and a large emigrant party of Swedes were in Liverpool awaiting the ship to convey them to America.
They repaired in the evening to the Strangers’ Rest, Liverpool, where there is a daily service and Gospel address for foreigners of various nationalities.
The Swedish chaplain requested of the superintendent, to be allowed to address the meeting which was about being held for Swedes. The request was readily complied with, and the hymn, “Shall we gather at the river?” was sung in Swedish. The chaplain (little aware, perhaps, that the word “shibboleth,” in which he was to become so interested, is the Hebrew for river, or flood, or stream of waters) then gave his address on Judg. 12, and concluded with the hymn, “Shall we meet beyond the river?” always a favorite hymn with emigrants.
A lady who spoke sometimes to the Scandinavians through an interpreter, asked the superintendent what had been the subject of the discourse. “It was all about sibboleth and shibboleth,” was the reply; “and about the cruel men who massacred thousands of poor foreigners because they could not speak the language of the place properly. The minister spoke about our duty to ignorant people. It was nice what he said about that, but not a word did he say of the Lord Jesus Christ, or of the way to be saved.”
The lady, having distributed some of Mrs. Grimke’s Gospel text cards, then went towards the platform, and offered a little packet of them to the chaplain to distribute on the voyage. She selected one for himself, and with a pencil drew on the back of it two letters.
The letters were Hebrew. One was שׂ (sin), pronounced as our English s. The other was שׁ (shin), pronounced as sh.
Then she said, “Those letters look very much alike, but there is an important difference. Do you see the difference?”
He replied, “I do not see any difference, but they are well drawn―both of them.”
“Do look again.” The chaplain, going nearer the gas, did look again, and carefully, and then said, “No, madam, I cannot see any difference―both are perfect.”
“Ah,” she said, “both are not perfect. Many lives have been lost through the difference not being discerned. Do you see the little dot to the right, over the second letter שׁ?
Now I shall tell you all I mean.
“That little dot makes all the difference. Without that dot the letter is pronounced sin in Hebrew―it sounds as s; it is the first letter in that imperfect word ‘sibboleth.’ But with the dot over it to the right it becomes sh, and is the first letter in the, correct word ‘shibboleth.’
“Now do you see the solemn parable under the surface of the verses from which you have been preaching this evening?
“The first letter may be sometimes written with a dot to the left. It may then, perhaps, look to some a little more like the second letter, but it never can pass for anything but sin, or s.
“You have said good things this evening about being kind, but this was not telling anything about the passport which all must have to cross the river safely, and which, like the watchword ‘shibboleth,’ would secure from death.
“It is merely teaching people to say ‘sibboleth,’ and leaving out the one thing most needed. It is putting a new patch on their old garments to mend their self-righteousness only, for they might be ever so kind and yet not really safe―not saved.
“Many souls are lost because they do not know the only way of salvation; teaching sinners to try and do better in their own natural way, is sending them to death with the unmeaning word ‘sibboleth’ on their lips.
“How shall they do in the swelling of Jordan?”
The young preacher listened with meekness to many of the beautiful texts on Mrs. Grimke’s cards, such as John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16). The lady said, “Just put a dot to the right on each text you preach upon, that you may remember not to leave out the chief thing when teaching about crossing the river. If those thousands who perished, as it is recorded in Judg. 12:66Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. (Judges 12:6), had been taught the difference between שׂ and שׁ, they would have crossed the river in security and peace.”
The emigrants sailed next day for America.
About ten years after the events just recorded, a large party of returning emigrants came to the Strangers’ Rest. After the meeting a gentleman came forward and said to the lady who had spoken to him on that evening ten years, previously, “Do you remember me, madam?” On the reply being in the negative, he said, “Oh, never can I forget you! I met you where you now stand nearly ten years ago. Do you remember ‘sibboleth’ and ‘shibboleth’?”
“And now I am here again, quite changed. I am in liberty, the glorious liberty of the children of God. I have got free from all the bandages.” In allusion to John 11, which had been just read at the meeting. Our Lord’s words of Lazarus, “Loose him and let him go.”
“My dear wife is of one mind with me; we work together in the mission. I am going now for her to Norway, as she had to go to her home there for her health.”
He said many in the room who were returning with him were full of joy and peace, and would make known their blessing in their Scandinavian homes, whence they would return to America to their farms in spring. He said, “We know the difference well between ‘sibboleth’ and ‘shibboleth,’ between the form of religiousness and the reality.”
The kind superintendent (also a Swede) was quite overcome, for many in that large congregation had formerly been blessed at the Rest.
How kind and cordial were their expressions and thanksgivings! After the concluding prayer we sang:
“We shall meet beyond the river.”