The middle link

"The Waldenses are the middle link which connects the primitive Christians and fathers with the reformed, and by their means the proof is completely established; that salvation by the grace of Christ, felt in the heart and expressed in the life by the power of the Holy Ghost, has ever existed, from the time of the Apostles to this day, and that it is a doctrine marked by the cross, and distinct from all that religion of mere form or convenience, or of human invention, which calls itself Christian, but which wants the spirit of Christ." -- From Milner's Church History, as quoted in Authentic Details of the Valdenses, in Piedmont and Other Countries, by Charles Holte Bracebridge, London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1827 (apparently referring to the History of the Church of Christ by Joseph Milner, 1744–1797, an English Episcopal minister of the evangelical party)