Wilde’s murderer found no freedom until he found no hope in himself and was forced to look out and up. Wilde’s prisoner would agree with Paul Zahl that perhaps the best exterior sign on a church’s door should read “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” for salvation and freedom only begin at the end of Hope, “in the cave of black despair” (II.3.4). The noose is the murderer’s gateway to Paradise.

And he goes to the gallows a free man, freer than anyone in the prison-including Chaplain, Sheriff, Governor, and guard. Their “endless vigil” of anxious prayer the night before the murderer’s execution is contrasted with his deep sleep. This dread accounts for the shock they experience as they observe his peace. The other guilty prisoners look upon him and see their own eventual fate, and they dread it. The narrator exposits the gracelessness of prison, where “souls in pain” find no comfort-not from the Chaplain, not from the Sheriff, not from the Governor, not from the guards who watch the death-bound murderer weep and pray. How can a guilty murderer look toward his day of execution with restful surrender, without guile or self-deception? Oscar Wilde’s answer is, “In Christ.” The “Ballad of Reading Gaol” recounts a prisoner’s observation of another prisoner’s peace and freedom as he approaches the hangman’s noose-the unavoidable consequence for killing his wife in cold “blood and wine.” The convict’s freedom was evident in the prison yard-a “light and gay” bounce to his step, and a wistful gazing at the sky as if to say, with Dorothy, “There’s no place like home.” * * * * * * * Where Souls In Pain Find No Comfort Along with a few great theological books, we have been tasked to read novels by George Eliot, Mark Rutherford, Thornton Wilder, and William Inge, and poetry by Oscar Wilde and Samuel Johnson.īelow is what I would describe as a “pastoral exposition” of a moving poem by Oscar Wilde, “ The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” Do yourself a favor and spend an hour soaking in this poem. The course is particularly designed to intersect with my English Reformation tract, as it is attempting to exposit the pastoral heart behind the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England.

He has us reading some unconventional (and splendid) material. I’ve been preparing as a student for a most unique course on “Doctrine for Preaching and Pastoral Care,” with Dr.

The ballad of reading jail