complicated sentence in “To Kill a Mockingbird”

I am from China. I tries to read the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. I met a question in a sentence. The sentence is in the paragraph below.

Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings. All we had was Simon Finch, a fur-trapping apothecary from Cornwall whose piety was exceeded only by his stinginess. In England, Simon was irritated by the persecution of those who called themselves Methodists at the hands of their more liberal brethren, and as Simon called himself a Methodist, he worked his way across the Atlantic to Philadelphia, thence to Jamaica, thence to Mobile, and up the Saint Stephens. Mindful of John Wesley’s strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling, Simon made a pile practicing medicine, but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what he knew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel. So Simon, having forgotten his teacher’s dictum on the possession of human chattels, bought three slaves and with their aid established a homestead on the banks of the Alabama River some forty miles above Saint Stephens. He returned to Saint Stephens only once, to find a wife, and with her established a line that ran high to daughters. Simon lived to an impressive age and died rich.

The sentence is "Mindful of John Wesley’s strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling, Simon made a pile practicing medicine, but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what he knew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel".

Does "Mindful of John Wesley’s strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling" mean "Simon was aware that John Wesley very harshly criticized using many words to describe purchases and sales in the writing"?

Does "the putting on of gold and costly apparel" mean "Simon dressed himself in gold and expensive clothes "?

Does the word "as" in "as the putting on of gold and costly apparel" have the same meaning as the word "as" in the sentence "A flat stone was used as a table"?

http://www.penfield.edu/webpages/jgarbarino/files/to_kill_a_mockingbird_text.pdf

Solution 1:

There's three issues here, complex sentence structure, a use of ornate, Biblically inspired language, and some playful, allusive indirection, all of which are distinctively typical of the educated Southern American mode of speaking and writing. It also helps to know that John Wesley was the founder of Methodism, a Christian Protestant denomination founded in England, but influential in America.

Mindful of John Wesley’s strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling, Simon made a pile practicing medicine...

Simon --being consciously aware of John Wesley's prohibition on talking too much while conducting business dealings --became rich practicing medicine instead...

The joke here is that Simon interpreted narrowly a statement of John Wesley's that was probably meant as general advice against being too concerned with the pursuit of money.

...but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what he knew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel.

...but he wasn't happy being a rich doctor, because it tempted him to become worldly and extravagant.

This second part of the sentence isn't as hard to parse, but it makes some allusions. "Gold and costly apparel" is a quote from a John Wesley sermon, which in turn alludes to a passage from 1 Timothy 2:9 (The Bible, New Testament) that warns against taking too much pride in your clothing and appearance.

Solution 2:

Does "Mindful of John Wesley’s strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling" mean "Simon was aware that John Wesley very harshly criticized using many words to describe purchases and sales in the writing"?

No. It means Simon understood John Wesley's criticism of some practices of commerce, namely, using "too many words" (I would probably interpret this as being too pushy, desperate to make the sale), and he practiced control of his behavior whenever he was selling to his customers, so as to remain an upright and just salesman. And this is attributed to his success, because his customers liked him better for it.

Does "the putting on of gold and costly apparel" mean "Simon dressed himself in gold and expensive clothes "?

Unclear what you mean... The statement "putting on of gold and costly apparel" does mean "dressing in jewelry and expensive clothing", but it doesn't say that Simon did this. It says the opposite, that he fought the temptation because he didn't want to do anything that wouldn't glorify God.

Does the word "as" in "as the putting on of gold and costly apparel" have the same meaning as the word "as" in the sentence "A flat stone was used as a table"?

Yes, but in your comparison, the stone was used as a table, whereas in the complete sentence from To Kill A Mockingbird, the 'as' is connecting to "not for the glory of God". It's completing the thought of what Simon saw as behavior that should not be done, behavior that should be resisted; so he did not do this. Grammatically, the 'as' is performing the same function.