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The full sentence is: "The priest seems all in the matter, and the people nothing; while the great attention paid to bowing, crossing and genuflexions appears to reduce the whole service to a mere spectacle,--and of all spectacles it is the less dignified or imposing. "

From : AOTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HACKNEY CHARIOT The Athenaeum; Dec 31, 1828; 62; British Periodicals pg. 982

Can you please explain the sentence so that a children can understand? I think the spectacle refer to mass as that was what it was saying before the sentence. I don't know that the less dignified or imposing spectacle is referring to?

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    Don't worry too much about this structure, the piece was written nearly 200 years ago and the language has changed a lot since then. When you say that you want an explanation that children can understand it would be interesting to know how old a child you are thinking of. I suspect that most children wouldn't have understood it easily even in 1828.
    – BoldBen
    Commented Mar 8, 2021 at 6:16

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"All in the matter" is not an idiom in this case. It would mean the same if someone wrote

In the matter, the priest seems all, and the people nothing.

Just as the second clause is implied to parallel the first with the verb, "the people seem nothing", it is also implied that they "seem nothing in the matter."

That is in the service (which is the matter), the priest seems all important, and the people who form the congregation, of no importance.

The "less dignified or imposing" is a bit less grammatical. Normally, with "all" you would use the superlative "least." But it must mean that the Mass is the least impressive of all spectacles -- or possibly the actions of the congregation at Mass.

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  • Ah, then the problem would not arise in speech. As usual, writing conventions are at fault.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Mar 8, 2021 at 16:23

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