Other voices were then heard. John Frederick, son of Duke John, and nephew of Frederick, the pupil of Spalatin, a young prince, seventeen years of age, who afterwards wore the electoral crown, and whose reign was marked by great misfortunes, had been inspired with a heartfelt love of the truth, and was strongly attached to Luther.[330] When he saw him struck with the anathemas of Rome, he embraced his cause with the warmth of a young Christian and a young prince. He wrote to the doctor, he wrote also to his uncle, soliciting him to protect Luther against his enemies. At the same time, Spalatin, though indeed he was often very desponding, Pontanus, and the other counsellors who were with the Elector at Cologne, represented to him that he could not abandon the Reformer.[331] [330] ... Sonderliche Gunst und Gnade zu mir unwürdiglich und den grossen Willen und Lust zer der heiligen göttlichen Wahrheit ... (L. Ep. i, p. 548, to John Frederick, 30th October, 1520.) [331] "Assiduo flabello ministrorum, illi jugiter suadentium ne Lutherum desereret." (Pallavicini, i, p. 86.) [Sidenote: THE ELECTOR PROTECTS LUTHER.] Amid the general agitation, only one man remained tranquil--that man was Luther. While others were trying to save him by the influence of the great, the monk, in his cloister at Wittemberg, thought that the great stood more in need of being saved by him. Writing to Spalatin, he says, "If the gospel was of a nature to be propagated or maintained by the power of the world, God would not have entrusted it to fishermen.[332] To defend the gospel appertains not to the princes and pontiffs of this world. They have enough to do to shelter themselves from the judgments of the Lord and his Anointed. If I speak, I do it in order that they may obtain the knowledge of the divine word, and be saved by it." [332] Evangelium si tale esset, quod potentatibus mundi aut propagaretur aut servaretur, non illud piscatoribus Deus demandasset. (L. Ep. i, p. 521.)