Carlyle despised it.
Emerson had probably not so much as given it a thought in his life.
But what struck Froude most about them was that they dealt with actual phaenomena, with things and persons around them, with the world as it was.

They did not appeal to tradition, or to antiquity, but to nature, and to the mind of man.

The French Revolution, then but half a century old, was interpreted by Carlyle not as Antichrist, but as God's judgment upon sin.
Perhaps one view was not more historical than the other.

But the first was groundless, and second had at least some evidence in support of it.
God may be, or rather must be, conceived to work through other instruments besides Christianity.

"Neither in Jerusalem, nor on this mountain, shall men worship the Father." Carlyle completed what Newman had begun, and the dogmatic foundation of Froude's belief gave way.