How does his congregation regard Mr. Hooper before he began wearing the veil? How does the veil reflect his relationship with his congregation?

Before he began to wear
the black veil, Mr.
Hooper's congregation regarded him as "a good preacher, but not an
energetic
one: he strove to win his people heavenward by mild, persuasive influences,
rather
than to drive them thither by the thunders of the Word."  In other
words, Mr. Hooper was
never a fire-and-brimstone type of preacher; he was
more gentle than that, and he was thought of
as being rather easygoing and
placid.  Now, however, all that's changed.  the first sermon he
gave wearing
the veil, was "greatly the most powerful effort that [his congregation] had

ever heard from their pastor's lips."  Mr. Hooper suddenly seems a great deal more
sober,
and less peaceful, than before.

Further it used to
be that Old Squire
Saunders would "invite Mr. Hooper to his table, where the
good clergyman had been wont to
bless the food, almost every Sunday since his
settlement," but no more.  His parishioners'
sense of awe and wonder and even
fright now overshadows all of their dealings with their
minister.  Where once
he seemed like a kindly man one might ask to dinner, he now inspires a
sense
of dread as a result of the "terrible thing" on his face.