It is evident, by the way, that the historical method of interpretation differs also, in the effect it has on the feelings and practice, from the popular interpretation of the present day, and of former times. It is evident, for instance, that it could not lead a man to denounce the mythology and religion of Egypt, the aims of which were distinctly moral, as the invention of devils. The old popular methods of interpretation, also, naturally sanctioned the persecution of those who differ from us in religion, as they did at the time of the Crusades; and of those who differ from us only in interpretation, as in the case of the treatment of the Vaudois; and in the still more shocking case of the creation and maintenance of the Inquisition, one of the most dreadful episodes in human history. The historical method, however, suggests nothing of the kind. It can regard such extravagancies only as contradictions of the meaning and purpose of religion. But to go back to the contrast between the popular and the historical methods of interpretation as applied to the particular instance I selected, that of the first chapters of the Book of Genesis. Some little time back I met with the following illustration of the errors into which we must fall, if we feel ourselves obliged to take them precisely in the sense that would belong to their words, had they been addressed by a living writer to ourselves. There happened to be an equestrian circus exhibiting in the neighbouring town. The gardener who was in my service at the time had rather an inquisitive mind; and the word equestrian, which occurred in the posters that announced the performance, puzzled him; and as he did not like to give his money without knowing what it was for, he asked me what the word meant. I told him it meant an exhibition in which horses bore a part, and that the word was derived from _equus_, the Latin name for a horse. ‘No,’ he exclaimed, ‘that can’t be right.’ ‘Yes,’ I rejoined, ‘it is so.’ ‘No;’ he continued, ‘it is impossible; because we are told that when the animals were created they were all brought to Adam, and that whatsoever he called each, that was the name thereof. So horse must be the name of the animal all over the world for ever. Being an animal, it can have only one name: the name Adam gave it.’ Argument was useless. For him to have been persuaded of anything that contradicted his literal interpretation would have been to abandon belief in the authenticity of the book. Here then we have the popular method actually at work. We see the whole process. And the way in which it demonstrated to my gardener that _equus_ could not possibly be Latin for horse, is much the same as the way in which some other conclusions have been arrived at, with which everybody is familiar, but with which very few people are satisfied.