Neander's greatest literary treasure to the world has proved to be, however, his Allgemeine Geschichte der christlichen Religion und Kirche (Hamb. 1825-52 ; 3d ed. 1851-56, 6 vols. 8vo), which treats of the history of the Church from the apostolic age to the Council of Basle in 1430. It is accessible to English readers in the ex- cellent translation of Prof. Joseph Torrey, under the title oiGenercd Uistory of the Christian Religion and Chuirh (from the second and improved edition [Boston, 1847, 5 vols. 8vo] ; and reprinted at Edinburgh and London). Neander sets out in this work with the idea that Chris- tianity is a life-giving spirit, awakened in the mind by the influence of divine truth on the heart; that it recog- nises no distinction of spiritual authority among men, no priesthood, properly so called, no holy days, and no or- dinances in the technical sense of the word ; although it naturally assumes forms accommodated to the circum- stances of the times, and adapts itself to every stage in human culture. This Christianity is a leaven that takes hold of whatsoever is divine in man, quickening it.
struggling with the contrary elements— with Judaism, with iieathenism, with all the worldly and sinful pro- pensities of the soul— gradually modifying or overcom- ing them, and destined eventually to ferment the whole mind of our race. The history of its workings, devel- opments, and manifestations in these respects is the history of the Christian religion and Church. He ex- hibits extraordinary talent in bringing out, in a ge- neric way, the hidden life of Christianity, and repre- senting it as a leavenlike power that pervades and sanc- tifies society from within. He thus restores the -re- ligious and practical element to its due prominence in opposition to the coldly intellectual and critical method of rationalistic historians ; yet without thereby wrong- ing in the least the claims of science, or running into narrow sectarian extremes, like the pietistic Arnold. Says Dr. Hurst: "The various influences hitherto em- ployed against rationalism had proceeded as far towards its extinction as it was possible for them to go. Philos- ophy and doctrinal theology had spent their efforts. The' history of the Church having always been treated mechanically, it was now necessary that the continued presence and agency of Christ with his people should he carefully portrayed. The progress of the Church needed to be represented as more than growth from natural causes, such as the force of civilization and echi- cation. It was necessary to show that a high superin- tending Wisdom is directing its path, overcoming its difficulties, and leading it through persecution and blood to ultimate triumph. Neander rendered this im- portant service. He directed the vision of the theolo- gian to a new field, and became the father of the best Church historians of the nineteenth century" illist. of Rationalism, p. 252, 253). Neander no doubt sometimes went too far in his liberality ; and by trying to do full justice even to heretics and sectarians, he was in danger sometimes — like Arnold and Milner, although of course in a far less degree — of doing injustice to the champions of orthodoxy and the Church. The cry is therefore, on the part especially of Churchmen, who would claim for the objectivity of the Church a like import with the ob- jectivity of the Gospel, that there is in Neander a want of the proper appreciation of the objective, realistic ele- ment in Church history. Now it is true that Neander is more the historian of the invisible kingdom of Christ iir the hearts of its individual members than of the visible Church in its great conflict and contact with a wicked world. Yet one need but turn to Neander's pages for a delineation of ecclesiasticism in the Mid- dle Ages— the time when objectiveness was most vigor- ous in the Church— to be convinced that Neander well understood how to value this quality, when it Avas the natural form of the growth of the Christian life. The internal and most personal were certainly of more im- portance to him than anything else. Says Jacobi, Nean- der's pupil and devoted "follower : "When the predomi- nant Christian power was connected with the objective forms of the Church, as in the time of Abelard, he regard- ed their ascendency as warranted, without justifying the contemporary suppression of the germs of truth, and the reprehensible means which were employed in particular cases. And is it not confirmed by the experience of all ages that there is no fault to which the traditionary Church party is more prone than suspicion of every de- viation, and suppression of even such dissent as is legiti- mate ? If in modern times individualism has increased to a bewildering excess, has it not been one principal reason why the rights of individuals to form their own views of the gospel were not acknowledged as they de- served, either in the Middle Ages or in the later decen- nia of the Keformation— to say nothing of the most flourishing period of Protestant orthodoxy? Would Dr. Kurtz be willing to defend the manner in which Wickliffe, Huss, and John Arndt were treated in the name of orthodoxy ; and how, according to his notions, would Luther have been justified in setting himself against the objectivity of the Church, unless, with