It was less surprising, and intensely characteristic, that his subjects should be the Reformation and the sea.
Froude's religious position is best stated in his own words, written when he was in South Africa, to a member of his family: "I know by sad experience much of what is passing in your mind.
Although my young days were chequered with much which I look back on with regret and shame, still I believe I always tried to learn what was true, and when I had found it to stick to it.

The High Church theology was long attractive to me, but then I found, or thought I found, that it had no foundation, and indeed that very few of its professors in their heart of hearts believed what they were saying.
Apostolic Succession, Sacramental Grace, and the rest of it, are very pretty, but are they facts?
Is it a fact that any special mysterious power is communicated by a Bishop's hands?
Is it a fact that a child's nature is changed by water and words--or that the bread when it is broken ceases to be bread?
We cannot tell that it is not so, you say.

But can we tell that it is so?
and we ought to be able to tell before we believe it.

All that fell away from me when I came in contact with the Cleavers and their friends.

Their views never commended themselves to me wholly; but at least they were spiritual and not material.