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supply of ministers; and of recalling a very valuable Vaudois minister, Antoine Leger, from Constantinople, to take charge of the church of San Giovanni.

Antoine Leger was at that time chaplain to the Ambassador of the United Provinces of the Low Countries; and was the intimate friend of Cyril Lucar, the patriarch of the Greek church, at the critical period when Pope Urban VIII. ' endeavoured, by means of the Jesuits and the French Ambassador, to engage the Greeks, and other oriental Christians, to submit to the authority of the Roman pontiff.

The patriarch Cyril, however, professed greater attachment to the protestant than to the Romish faith; in consequence of which he fell a victim to the malice of his enemies; who, by means of false witnesses, accused him of treason; and he was unjustly put to death. He had previously given Antoine Leger his confession of faith,-much in unison with that of the protestants, and in a letter written with his own hand, a short time before he was put to death, begged Leger to make it generally known that his sentiments were comprised in that document.

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Jean Leger was another very distinguished member of the family; a pastor, -a moderator, -a confessor, and when an exile from his be

loved valleys, and appointed, in 1662, minister of the Walloon church* at Leyden, he' wrote an elaborate work, his " Histoire Générale des Eglises Evangéliques des Vallées de Piémont.” When a student at Geneva, being a remarkably good swimmer, he was so happy as to save the life of the Prince Palatine, afterwards King of Sweden, who was on the point of being drowned in the Lake. Leger's great exertions in afterlife, when superintending the churches, or visiting foreign countries as a suppliant in their behalf, exposed him to many and great dangers, both from unfriendly elements, and unrelenting enemies.

During the persecution of 1686, the minister of Pral, M. Leydet, after hiding himself in caves, was at length taken, and conveyed to Luzerne. On quitting the prison to be executed, he said "it was a day of double deliverance; that of his body from captivity, and that of his soul from imprisonment in the body; for he cherished the expectation of partaking shortly, in full liberty, of the joys of the blessed." He died with the piety and constancy of a primitive martyr.

* The Walloon churches were formed by protestant exiles, driven by the Duke of Alva's persecution from the Walloon country, (near Namur, &c.) and compelled to seek an asylum in Holland.

Henri Arnaud, a pastor who accompanied the exiles during that persecution, afterwards conceived and executed the bold design of leading back the dispersed Vaudois from Switzerland, over the mountains of Savoy, to their native valleys. By the great skill of Arnaud, and the extraordinary valour of the band of about 800 men who accompanied him, those lands which had been so unjustly wrested from them were regained, and their families re-established, by their sovereign's permission, in the humble, but ever-cherished retreats of their ancestors. Arnaud, compelled to leave Piedmont, visited the Vaudois exiles in Germany, where his ardent mind sought repose in the peaceful discharge of pastoral duties at Schoenberg, and his robust frame that had sustained almost incredible hardships, rests in a vault in the small neat church of that village. He had previously composed a work, "La glorieuse Rentrée," &c. designed to commemorate the return of the Vaudois, which contains minute details on the subject.

During the last century another author appeared amongst the Vaudois, the minister Brez, who officiated in Holland, and who commenced, but did not live to complete a history of the Vaudois, which would have included events subsequent to the time of the

historian Leger. One volume only was published. The MSS. of M. Brez have been entrusted to the Editor.

The late moderator, J. Rodolphe Peyran, should be next mentioned; whose claim to distinction may be estimated by the list of his MSS. entrusted to the Editor, which has already appeared in a former part of this volume. He was indeed a man of research and a laborious divine!

The pastors who now preside over the several churches in the Valleys of Piedmont, are generally well-informed upon literary subjects; assiduous in preparing discourses distinguished for perspicuity of style, and the importance of the Christian truths they comprise; and exemplarily attentive to the laborious duties of the pastoral charge.

Amongst these M. Bert has, by the unanimous suffrages of his brethren, been appointed moderator, and thus sustains an office, which, in addition to his labours as the pastor of La Tour, includes both presiding at the synod, and visiting several churches. In this work he is assisted by an assistant-moderator, M. Rostaing of Villeseche, who visits the remaining churches; whilst M. Muston of Bobi acts as secretary. M. Bert is the author of a small work ("Notice Historique") relative to the Vaudois, and is engaged in preparing a

book of devotions, " Livre de Famille" for their

use.

Some of the Vaudois ministers are stationed in countries distant from home; M. Mondon in a Vaudois colony in Germany; and M. Appia as pastor of a church at Frankfort. M. Appia has collected numerous printed documents and MSS. relative to the Waldenses; for the use of which, as he has been so obliging as to lend them to the Editor, in the most handsome and liberal manner, to assist him in compiling a history of the Vaudois, the most grateful acknowledgments are due to that talented Christian minister.

P. 51. "L'on a vu les plus grands empereurs, les Frederic, &c.......obligés de fléchir.”—At the coronation of the emperor Frederic I. Pope Adrian IV. " insisted upon Frederic's performing the office of equerry, and holding the stirrup to his holiness."

Frederic II. was excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX. for having delayed going with an army to Palestine longer than was agreeable to the "incensed pontiff."*

P. 52. " Dominique....le favori..du pape, qui le mit au nombre des saints après sa mort.”— Dominic, the founder of the order that bears his

* Mosheim's Ecc. Hist. III. 52, 136.

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