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His sensitive nature could not bear to see suffering in others. He shrank from the very sight of misery. Turning to his companions, he said, "If the Lord of Life had been traveling on this road as He was on that other, long ago, when the widow of Nain met Him with her dead son, He would have destroyed the plague by a word."
If it was the purpose of Luke to impress upon his readers the sympathy and tenderness of the Man Christ Jesus, it is easy to understand why he alone of all the evangelists records this touching story of the raising from the dead of the son of the widow of Nain. No picture could be more full of pity and compassion.
Why it was called the kind gallows, we are unable to inform the reader with certainty; but it is alleged that the Highlanders used to touch their bonnets as they passed a place which had been fatal to many of their countrymen, with the ejaculation 'God bless her nain sell, and the Teil tamn you! It may therefore have been called kind, as being a sort of native or kindred place of doom to those who suffered there, as in fulfilment of a natural destiny.
What is behind it? Sympathy is the power of putting my spirit outside my personality, into the circumstances of another man, and feeling as that man feels. I take one picture as an illustration of this. I see the Master approaching the city of Nain, and around Him His disciples. He is coming up.
11 And it came to pass soon afterwards, that he went to a city called Nain; and his disciples went with him, and a great multitude. 12 Now when he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, there was carried out one that was dead, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city were with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. 14 And he came nigh and touched the bier: and the bearers stood still.
Yet, even these wanderers were the means of exciting the attention of their kindred to the gospel, by telling them of the strange things they had heard at Nain. It was therefore resolved to follow the leadings of Providence, and, as soon as possible, to establish two other missionary settlements, the one towards the north, the other south of the present.
Procuring their food almost always at the hazard of their lives, instances of wonderful preservations were not uncommon among the Esquimaux, and their observations on their deliverances had generally a pious simplicity, which rendered them extremely pleasant. This year, Ephraim, a communicant, went with five others to catch seals at the edge of the ice, about sixty miles from Nain.
While the brethren at Nain continued with unwearied diligence to make known the salvation of Christ among the Esquimaux, they observed with grief, that their deep-rooted heathenish superstitions, and the violent and gross, but natural evil passions which they delighted to indulge, and which led to the frequent perpetration of adultery and murder, obstructed the entrance of the word of God into their hearts, and had as yet rendered almost all their labours fruitless.
While the missionaries in Hopedale were rejoicing in the great mercy shown to their beloved Esquimaux, the brethren at Nain were mourning over the sore backslidings of many of their congregation.
Were the shadows deepened? Was the suffering prolonged? Let the sisters of Bethany answer you; let the widow of Nain answer you. Let the great host of the lame, blind, diseased, and leprous answer. Look into the gentle, serene eyes of Mary Magdalene, once so desperate and clouded by evil, and then know whether he brings sorrow or joy to the world.
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