"Would that they who have followed Berengar in his errors would follow him also in his repentance, and that their error may turn to the advantage of the Church! There are innumerable questions about this sacrament, as, how the change of substance takes place; how accidents can exist without a substance; how the bread and the wine retain the colour, the smell, the taste, the power of satisfying, of intoxicating, and of nourishing which they had before they were consecrated; at what moment they begin and cease to be the body and blood of Christ; whether, if the form be destroyed another substance succeeds; how the same body may be in innumerable places; how the very body of a man can be under the least crumb of bread and many other things which may properly be discussed by those of trained intelligence. For the multitude it is enough to believe that after the consecration the bread and the wine are the true body and blood of the Lord, which cannot be divided, nor injured, nor is exposed to any harm, whatever may happen to the elements.... In short, in answer to all the doubts of human reasoning, there comes to us the unlimited power of God, to whom nothing is impossible and nothing difficult." In other words, Erasmus in 1530 is perfectly satisfied with the same mental attitude which Paschasius had displayed in the ninth century, at a moment when European culture was but just rising above its lowest point. His only criticism is reserved for the excesses of the Church system. His description of the proper state of mind of the devout worshipper is spiritual enough to be adopted by the most eager Protestant. "Once," he says, "when the Church was in its best estate, it knew but one sacrament and the bishop alone performed it. The throng of sacramental persons were attracted first by piety and then by gain. At length the thing has gone so far that many study for the priesthood precisely as one man learns to be a mechanic, another a cobbler, another a mason or a tailor. To these the Mass is only a means of livelihood."