§ 5.5. Almost contemporaneously with Gieseler, =Aug. Neander= of Berlin, † 1850, began the publication of his _Allg. Gesch. d. chr. Kirche_ in xi. divisions down to A.D. 1416 (Ham., 1824-1852. Engl. Transl. 9 vols., Edin., 1847-1855), by which ground was broken in another direction. Powerfully influenced by the religious movement, which since the wars of independence had inspired the noblest spirits of Germany, and sympathizing with Schleiermacher’s theology of feeling, he vindicated the rights of subjective piety in the scientific treatment of church history, and sought to make it fruitful for edification as a commentary of vast proportions on the parable of the leaven. With special delight he traces the developments of the inner life, shows what is Christian in even misconceived and ecclesiastically condemned manifestations, and feels for the most part repelled from objective ecclesiasticism, as from an ossification of the Christian life and the crystallization of dogma. In the same way he undervalues the significance of the political co-efficients, and has little appreciation of esthetic and artistic influences. The exposition goes out too often into wearisome details and grows somewhat monotonous, but is on every side lighted up by first hand acquaintance with the original sources. His scholar, =Hagenbach= of Basel, † 1874, put together in a collected form his lectures delivered before a cultured public upon several periods of church history, so as to furnish a treatise dealing with the whole field (7 vols., Leipz., 1868). These lectures are distinguished by an exposition luminous, interesting, sometimes rather broad, but always inspired by a warm Christian spirit and by circumspect judgment, inclining towards a mild confessional latitudinarianism. What, even on the confessional and ecclesiastical side, had been to some extent passed over by Neander, in consequence of his tendency to that inwardness that characterizes subjective and pectoral piety, has been enlarged upon by =Guericke= of Halle, † 1878, another of Neander’s scholars, in his _Handbuch_ (2 vols., Leipz., 1833; 9th ed., 3 vols., 1866; Eng. transl. “Manual of Ch. Hist.” Edinb., 1857), by the contribution of his own enthusiastic estimate of the Lutheran Church in a strong but clumsy statement; beyond this, however, the one-sidedness of Neander’s standpoint is not overcome, and although, alongside of Neander’s exposition, the materials and estimates of other standpoints are diligently used, and often the very words incorporated, the general result is not modified in any essential respect. Written with equal vigour, and bearing the impress of a freer ecclesiastical spirit, the _Handbuch_ of =Bruno Lindner= (3 vols., Leipzig, 1848 ff.) pursues with special diligence the course of the historical development of doctrine, and also emphasizes the influence of political factors.