Sin, everyone has it and those who say they do not have it probably have more of it. It is not uncommon to experience it during your lifetime. But where sin becomes a huge encumbrance is when it is secret sin that is hidden from the world but it eats at you day after day. And even though it burns inside you, you are too ill at ease to share it with someone else to try and alleviate the pain. You just put a "veil" over the pain/guilt and try to continue living your life as though nothing has happened.
This is the case for Mr. Hooper in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, "The Minister's Black Veil." But the reverend takes this act of hiding sins to a literal level. One Sunday he shows up for church with a black veil draped around his head. Coincidentally or not, it happened to be the Sunday the he was going to preaching on "secret sin, and those sad mysteries we hide from our nearest and dearest" (373). There is a slight chance he starts wearing the veil to prove a point that everyone has sin they are hiding and that if they saw the veils everyone wore, they would act different. However, I believe that he really does have enormous sin that he is trying to hide. What kind of secret sin is it though? I think the reason is hinted to in the footnote in the beginning of the story. But whatever the actual reason is, the veil still has the same affect on the parishioners. They are completely terrified by the minister now that he wears a simple black veil covering his eyes and nose. On the plus side though, his sermons are now more intense and soul rattling.
First of all, I think the secret sin the veil represents is almost a riddle. In the footnote, Hawthorne makes a reference to another clergyman who also wore a black veil but duly notes that it was for a different reason. The reason he wore it was because "he had accidentally killed a beloved friend; and from that day till the hour of his death, he hid his face from men" (371).