Dinah's style of preaching is typical of what the eighteenth century called the "enthusiastic" approach to religion. The sermon is highly emotional and personal; rather than discussing doctrine in the abstract, Dinah emphasizes her hearers' relationship to Christ. She makes them ashamed of their disloyalty through sin to their crucified Savior and brings them to repentance by concentrating upon the strength of Christ's love for them.
Dinah's preaching is effective primarily because it is sincere. When she first begins to speak, the townspeople are skeptical and suspicious, but Dinah is able to touch their hearts. This is a major element in Dinah's characterization; her influence over the other characters is primarily the influence of personality and good example. Time and time again, Dinah's presence alone is enough to soothe others and set them on the right track; her influence is almost magical.
It is difficult at first sight to assign a motive for the sudden appearance of the man on horseback in view of the fact that he appears only once more in the novel and plays an extremely minor role even then. Eliot seems to be striving for perspective; she wants her readers to view the scene on the village green not from the point of view of one of the participants but from that of an uninvolved spectator. This point of view has the effect of placing the reader at a distance from the action; the meeting, the village, the surrounding countryside are spread out like a panorama. Setting and characters here blend into a harmonious whole, and the reader, surveying the scene with the unnamed horseman, is impressed with its solidity and realism. The horseman represents the audience; as he looks on objectively, so do we.
