The Rev­erend Mic­ah Sowls begins his sto­ry as a thun­der­ous voice from the pul­pit, rail­ing against the the­atre with a fire that near­ly scorch­es the air. His con­dem­na­tion is not just moral, but the­atri­cal in itself, deliv­ered with such dra­mat­ic flair that even the most indif­fer­ent lis­ten­er might mis­take it for divine rev­e­la­tion. Behind this right­eous fury, how­ev­er, lies a qui­eter ambition—Sowls speaks not only to warn souls, but to impress a bish­op seat­ed among his parish­ioners. His ser­mon, bor­rowed from a rep­utable Lon­don source, lacks the per­son­al insight he pre­tends to offer. With every phrase and flour­ish, his goal is clear: to be noticed, per­haps pro­mot­ed, by preach­ing what he believes the bish­op wants to hear. Yet beneath the pol­ished rhetoric, there is an emptiness—a bor­rowed out­rage wield­ed with con­fi­dence, but not con­vic­tion. It is per­for­mance masked as faith, irony cloaked in robes of piety. And the con­gre­ga­tion, unaware, nods along.

After the ser­mon ends, the bish­op engages Sowls with warmth and curios­i­ty. His ques­tion is sim­ple but pierc­ing: has the Rev­erend ever stepped foot inside a the­atre? Sowls, slight­ly flus­tered, con­fess­es he has not. All his crit­i­cisms stem from what he’s read and what he’s heard—never from per­son­al wit­ness. The bish­op, smil­ing gen­tly, reveals that he has attend­ed sev­er­al per­for­mances, par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoy­ing the works of Shake­speare. His tone remains kind, but the mes­sage is clear: judg­ments made with­out expe­ri­ence are built on shaky ground. The bishop’s sub­tle chal­lenge turns the Reverend’s ser­mon inside out—not with harsh­ness, but with a sug­ges­tion. Per­haps, the bish­op implies, there is more virtue on the stage than Sowls sus­pects. It is a qui­et rebuke, offered not to shame, but to enlight­en. In that moment, the cler­gy­man who preached fire is left blink­ing in a soft but reveal­ing light.

As the bish­op departs, he leaves Sowls with a sim­ple task: attend a play and judge for him­self. This invi­ta­tion is both gen­er­ous and sharp, allow­ing room for change with­out demand­ing apol­o­gy. The bishop’s wis­dom lies in expo­sure, not argument—he believes that see­ing truth is often more pow­er­ful than hear­ing about it. For Sowls, the moment is one of uncom­fort­able reflec­tion. His ser­mon, craft­ed to impress, has unin­ten­tion­al­ly revealed how lit­tle he under­stands the thing he so fierce­ly opposed. The moral here is nei­ther scorn­ful nor con­demn­ing; rather, it under­scores the val­ue of first­hand expe­ri­ence over hearsay. Sowls is not a vil­lain, but a man caught in the habit of bor­rowed opin­ions. Through gen­tle satire, the bal­lad reveals how often peo­ple wrap their ambi­tion in bor­rowed virtue.

This humor­ous por­trait of Rev­erend Sowls offers more than just a jab at reli­gious hypocrisy—it speaks to a broad­er habit of con­demn­ing what we’ve nev­er encoun­tered. Whether in art, belief, or soci­ety, assump­tions made in igno­rance often sound loud­est. The poem reminds us that true moral author­i­ty comes from under­stand­ing, not imi­ta­tion. When Sowls preach­es against the stage, his bor­rowed words reveal a bor­rowed fear. Yet the bish­op, wise and tem­pered, knows that cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions like the­atre can hold truth as well as fol­ly. Shake­speare, with his flawed kings and noble fools, offers as much moral insight as any ser­mon. This con­trast between rigid con­dem­na­tion and thought­ful obser­va­tion dri­ves the ballad’s mes­sage: don’t dis­miss what you haven’t faced.

In the end, Sowls is left not silenced, but opened. His voice, once boom­ing with sec­ond­hand warn­ings, may soon soft­en into one of curios­i­ty. Per­haps he’ll sit in a the­atre some­day, and find human­i­ty speak­ing through actors’ lines—flawed, beau­ti­ful, and deeply real. That pos­si­bil­i­ty, sub­tle but strong, gives the bal­lad its last­ing pow­er. It asks not for per­fec­tion, but for humil­i­ty. And in the hands of Gilbert’s wit, even a fable about bor­rowed ser­mons becomes a les­son in learn­ing how to tru­ly see.