The Vicar-General of the Augustines was still Luther’s friend, and, fearing that he was not safe in Augsburg, he had him let out of the city at daybreak, through a small door in the wall, and then supplied with a horse. Having reached Wittenberg, where he was surrounded with devoted followers, Frederick the Wise was next ordered to give him up. About the same time Leo X. declared that the practices assailed by Luther were doctrines of the church, and must be accepted as such. Frederick began to waver; but the young Philip Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, and other distinguished men connected with the university exerted their influence, and the elector finally refused the demand. The Emperor Maximilian, now near his end, sent a letter to the pope, begging him to arrange the difficulty, and Leo X. commissioned his Nuncio, a Saxon nobleman named Karl von Miltitz, to meet Luther. The meeting took place at Altenburg in 1519; the Nuncio, who afterward reported that he “would not undertake to remove Luther from Germany with the help of 10,000 soldiers, for he had found ten men for him where one was for the pope”—was a mild and conciliatory man. He prayed Luther to pause, for he was destroying the peace of the church, and succeeded, by his persuasions, in inducing him to promise to keep silence, provided his antagonists remained silent also. This was merely a truce, and it was soon broken. Dr. Eck, one of the partisans of the church, challenged Luther’s friend and follower, Carlstadt, to a public discussion in Leipzig, and it was not long before Luther himself was compelled to take part in it. He declared his views with more clearness than ever, disregarding the outcry raised against him that he was in fellowship with the Bohemian heretics. The struggle, by this time, had affected all Germany, the middle class and smaller nobles being mostly on Luther’s side, while the priests and reigning princes, with a few exceptions, were against him. In order to defend himself from misrepresentation and justify his course, he published two pamphlets, one called “An Appeal to the Emperor and Christian Nobles of Germany,” and the other “Concerning the Babylonian Captivity of the Church.” These were read by tens of thousands, all over the country.