Even the lawless wind , it was believed , respected his dreadful secret and never blew aside the veil . But still good Mr. Hooper sadly smiled at the pale visages of the worldly throng as he passed by . Among all its bad influences , the black veil had the one desirable effect of making its wearer a very efficient clergyman . By the aid of his mysterious emblem -- for there was no other apparent cause -- he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin . His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves , affirming , though but figuratively , that before he brought them to celestial light they had been with him behind the black veil . Its gloom , indeed , enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections . Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper and would not yield their breath till he appeared , though ever , as he stooped to whisper consolation , they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own . Such were the terrors of the black veil even when Death had bared his visage . Strangers came long distances to attend service at his church with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure because it was forbidden them to behold his face . But many were made to quake ere they departed . Once , during Governor Belcher 's administration , Mr. Hooper was appointed to preach the election sermon . Covered with his black veil , he stood before the chief magistrate , the council and the representatives , and wrought so deep an impression that the legislative measures of that year were characterized by all the gloom and piety of our earliest ancestral sway . In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life , irreproachable in outward act , yet shrouded in dismal suspicions ; kind and loving , though unloved and dimly feared ; a man apart from men , shunned in their health and joy , but ever summoned to their aid in mortal anguish . As years wore on , shedding their snows above his sable veil , he acquired a name throughout the New England churches , and they called him Father Hooper . Nearly all his parishioners who were of mature age when he was settled had been borne away by many a funeral : he had one congregation in the church and a more crowded one in the churchyard ; and , having wrought so late into the evening and done his work so well , it was now good Father Hooper 's turn to rest . Several persons were visible by the shaded candlelight in the death-chamber of the old clergyman . Natural connections he had none . But there was the decorously grave though unmoved physician , seeking only to mitigate the last pangs of the patient whom he could not save . There were the deacons and other eminently pious members of his church . There , also , was the Reverend Mr. Clark of Westbury , a young and zealous divine who had ridden in haste to pray by the bedside of the expiring minister .
There was the nurse -- no hired handmaiden of Death , but one whose calm affection had endured thus long in secrecy , in solitude , amid the chill of age , and would not perish even XXXXX the dying-hour .
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