Summarize the following text to main points and sub-points and make detailed explain for them:

is mother some 
acquaintance with medicinal herbs and their preparation—a little store 
of wisdom which she had imparted to him as a solemn bequest—but of 
late years he had had doubts about the lawfulness of applying this 
knowledge, believing that herbs could have no efficacy without prayer, 
and that prayer might suffice without herbs; so that the inherited delight 
he had in wandering in the fields in search of foxglove and dandelion and 
coltsfoot, began to wear to him the character of a temptation. 
Among the members of his church there was one young man, a little 
older than himself, with whom he had long lived in such close friendship 
that it was the custom of their Lantern Yard brethren to call them David 
and Jonathan. The real name of the friend was William Dane, and he, 
too, was regarded as a shining instance of youthful piety, though 
somewhat given to over-severity towards weaker brethren, and to be so 
dazzled by his own light as to hold himself wiser than his teachers. But 
whatever blemishes others might discern in William, to his friend's mind 
he was faultless; for Marner had one of those impressible self-doubting 
natures which, at an inexperienced age, admire imperativeness and lean 
on contradiction. The expression of trusting simplicity in Marner's face, 
heightened by that absence of special observation, that defenceless, deer-
like gaze which belongs to large prominent eyes, was strongly contrasted 
by the self-complacent suppression of inward triumph that lurked in the 
narrow slanting eyes and compressed lips of William Dane. One of the 
most frequent topics of conversation between the two friends was 
Assurance of salvation: Silas confessed that he could never arrive at 
anything higher than hope mingled with fear, and listened with longing 
wonder when William declared that he had possessed unshaken 
assurance ever since, in the period of his conversion, he had dreamed 
that he saw the words "calling and election sure" standing by themselves 
on a white page in the open Bible. Such colloquies have occupied many a 
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pair of pale-faced weavers, whose unnurtured souls have been like young 
winged things, fluttering forsaken in the twilight. 
It had seemed to the unsuspecting Silas that the friendship had suffered 
no chill even from his formation of another attachment of a closer kind. 
For some months he had been engaged to a young servant-woman, 
waiting only for a little increase to their mutual savings in order to their 
marriage; and it was a great delight to him that Sarah did not object to 
William's occasional presence in their Sunday interviews. It was at this 
point in their history that Silas's cataleptic fit occurred during the 
prayer-meeting; and amidst the various queries and expressions of 
interest addressed to him by his fellow-members, William's suggestion 
alone jarred with the general sympathy towards a brother thus singled 
out for special dealings. He observed that, to him, this trance looked 
more like a visitation of Satan than a proof of divine favour, and 
exhorted his friend to see that he hid no accursed thing within his soul. 
Silas, feeling bound to accept rebuke and admonition as a brotherly 
office, felt no resentment, but only pain, at his friend's doubts 
concerning him; and to this was soon added some anxiety at the 
perception that Sarah's manner towards him began to exhibit a strange 
fluctuation between an effort at an increased manifestation of regard and 
involuntary signs of shrinking and dislike. He asked her if she wished to 
break off their engagement; but she denied this: their engagement was 
known to the church, and had been recognized in the prayer-meetings; it 
could not be broken off without strict investigation, and Sarah could 
render no reason that would be sanctioned by the feeling of the 
community. At this time the senior deacon was taken dangerously ill, 
and, being a childless widower, he was tended night and day by some of 
the younger brethren or sisters. Silas frequently took his turn in the 
night-watching with William, the one relieving the other at two in the 
morning. The old man, contrary to expectation, seemed to be on the way 
to recovery, when one night Silas, sitting up by his bedside, observed that 
his usual audible breathing had ceased. The candle was burning low, and 
he had to lift it to see the patient's face distinctly. Examination convinced 
him that the deacon was dead—had been dead some time, for the limbs 
were rigid. Silas asked himself if he had been asleep, and looked at the 
clock: it was already four in the morning. How was it that William had 
not come? In much anxiety he went to seek for help, and soon there were 
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several friends assembled in the house, the minister among them, while 
Silas went away to his work, wishing he could have met William to know 
the reason of his non-appearance. But at six o'clock, as he was thinking 
of going to seek his friend, William came, and with him the minister. 
They came to summon him to Lantern Yard, to meet the church 
members there; and to his inquiry concerning the cause of the summons 
the only reply was, "You will hear." Nothing further was said until Silas 
was seated in the vestry, in front of the minister, with the eyes of those 
who to him represented God's people fixed solemnly upon him. Then the 
minister, taking out a pocket-knife, showed it to Silas, and asked him if 
he knew where he had left that knife? Silas said, he did not know that he 
had left it anywhere out of his own pocket—but he was trembling at this 
strange interrogation. He was then exhorted not to hide his sin, but to 
confess and repent. The knife had been found in the bureau by the 
departed deacon's bedside—found in the place where the little bag of 
church money had lain, which the minister himself had seen the day 
before. Some hand had removed that bag; and whose hand could it be, if 
not that of the man to whom the knife belonged? For some time Silas 
was mute with astonishment: then he said, "God will clear me: I know 
nothing about the knife being there, or the money being gone. Search me 
and my dwelling; you will find nothing but three pound five of my own 
savings, which William Dane knows I have had these six months." At this 
William groaned, but the minister said, "The proof is heavy against you, 
brother Marner. The money was taken in the night last past, and no man 
was with our departed brother but you, for William Dane declares to us 
that he was hindered by sudden sickness from going to take his place as 
usual, and you yourself said that he had not come; and, moreover, you 
neglected the dead body." 
"I must have slept," said Silas. Then, after a pause, he added, "Or I must 
have had another visitation like that which you have all seen me under, 
so that the thief must have come and gone while I was not in the body, 
but out of the body. But, I say again, search me and my dwelling, for I 
have been nowhere else." 
The search was made, and it ended—in William Dane's finding the well-
known bag, empty, tucked behind the chest of drawers in Silas's 
chamber! On this William exhorted his friend to confess, and not to hide 
his sin any longer. Silas turned a look of keen reproach on him, and said, 
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"William, for nine years that we have gone in and out together, have you 
ever known me tell a lie? But God will clear me." 
"Brother," said William, "how do I know what you may have done in the 
secret chambers of your heart, to give Satan an advantage over you?" 
Silas was still looking at his friend. Suddenly a deep flush came over his 
face, and he was about to speak impetuously, when he seemed checked 
again by some inward shock, that sent the flush back and made him 
tremble. But at last he spoke feebly, looking at William. 
"I remember now—the knife wasn't in my pocket." 
William said, "I know nothing of what you mean." The other persons 
present, however, began to inquire where Silas meant to say that the 
knife was, but he would give no further explanation: he only said, "I am 
sore stricken; I can say nothing. God will clear me." 
On their return to the vestry there was further deliberation. Any resort to 
legal measures for ascertaining the culprit was contrary to the principles 
of the church in Lantern Yard, according to which prosecution was 
forbidden to Christians, even had the case held less scandal to the 
community. But the members were bound to take other measures for 
finding out the truth, and they resolved on praying and drawing lots. 
This resolution can be a ground of surprise only to those who are 
unacquainted with that obscure religious life which has gone on in the 
alleys of our towns. Silas knelt with his brethren, relying on his own 
innocence being certified by immediate divine interference, but feeling 
that there was sorrow and mourning behind for him even then—that his 
trust in man had been cruelly bruised. The lots declared that Silas

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