These "fooleries," which Erasmus calls most gross and absurd, he says are practiced not merely by the vulgar, but by "such proficients in religion as one might well expect should have more wit." He ridicules the notion of each country and place being under the special protection of a patron saint, as well as the kindred absurdity of calling upon one saint to cure a toothache, upon another to restore lost goods, upon another to protect seamen, and upon another to guard cows and sheep. Nor does he refrain from reflecting upon the homage paid to the Virgin Mary, "whose blind devotees think it manners now to place the mother before the Son." He utterly scouts and reviles the folly of hanging up offerings at the shrines of saints for their imaginary aid in getting the donors out of trouble or danger. The responsibility of all this folly and delusion he boldly assigns to the priests, who gain money by them. "They blacken the darkness and promote the delusion, wisely foreseeing that the people (like cows which never give down their milk so well as when they are gently stroked) would part with less if they knew more." If any serious and wise man, he adds, should tell the people that a pious life is the only way of securing a peaceful death, that repentance and amendment alone can procure pardon, and that the best devotion to a saint is to imitate his example, there would be a very different estimate put upon masses, fastings, and other austerities. Erasmus saw this prophecy fulfilled before many years had rolled over his head. [Illustration: Christ, the True Light. (Holbein, about 1520.)]