The narrator says, "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."
This is a very specific kind of clergyman--one very Puritan, and very much in line with other works by Hawthorne. As far as why, there are several reasons. The veil hides his face, allowing sinners to imagine the best and worst. The fact that he carries darkness with him all the time allows them to think of him as one of them: a sinner.
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