Froude was more sceptical, less inclined to hero-worship, far more academic in thought and style.

They agreed in setting the moral lessons of history above any theory of scientific development, and in cultivating the human interest of the narrative as that which alone abides.
-- * Dr.Lightfoot.
-- That Froude set out with a polemical purpose is not to be denied.

He had seen enough of the Romanist or Anglican revival to dislike it heartily, and he held that Protestant countries were the most prosperous because they were morally the best.

Although he did not accept the Evangelical theology, he thought Calvinism the most philosophic form of religious belief, and Puritanism the soundest sort of ethical creed.

The Church of England as understood by his father was to him the healthiest of ecclesiastical institutions, teaching godliness, inculcating duty, saying as little as possible about dogma.