Can you help me understand this extract?

Question

Shield-like bearing his slate before him, amid stares and jeers he moved slowly up and down, at his turning points again changing his inscription

to--

"Charity believeth all things."

and then--

"Charity never faileth."

QUESTION NO1: Isn't shield-like an adj that modifies the noun slater?

QUESTION NO2: Isn't turning points redundant if it means the moment he took the decision to change his inscription?

Please be clear and concise.

Answer 1

Shield-like describes  carrying the slate. (holding it before him like a shield.)

He walked up to his turning point where he inscribes something, turns and then walks back down(I presume it is an aisle between rows of desks and he turns at the ends of the aisle.)to a place where he inscribes something else then turns again to walk back up.

Answer 2

The word 'shield-like' modifies not the slater, but 'bearing'.  How is the slate borne?  It is borne shield-like.

I think he has written one phrase on each side of his slate, and as he changes direction walking 'up and down', he displays a different inscription.

He sounds like a schoolboy in trouble, asking that his excuses be believed, and, in any case, that he be forgiven.

LATER...  I've looked it up.  The quotation is from Herman Melville's "The Confidence Man."  A curious mute character, who uses a slate to communicate, sees a placard offering a reward for capture of an impostor.  He responds by writing "Charity thinketh no evil" on his slate and displaying it next to the placard.  Jostled aside, he erases the last three words and writes again, so the slate now reads, "Charity suffereth long, and is kind."  The crowd is not sympathetic, but he continues to move back and forth, leaving the word "Charity" each time, but erasing and replacing the other words.