In philosophy, Samuell Gorton was an original thinker rather than a student of past systems. In theology, he was far in advance of the prevailing thought of his time. Only a few of the minor sects of our own day have yet approximated to his views as to the equal position of woman in the pulpit and the church; only an occasional strong and independent mind has reached his conception of religion as a birthright of the individual soul, to which belongs the unalienable privilege of investigation and interpretation, free from priestly mediation and sectarian bias. IX CONCLUSION In conclusion, what shall we say were the peculiar and distinctive contributions of Samuell Gorton to the Commonwealth which he helped to found, and the life of our later day? I answer, first, to him more than to any other we are indebted for the recognition and establishment of the principle that English law and the rights of English citizenship are coextensive with English supremacy; and that to secure these rights in the Colonies, together with the privileges of local administration, a charter from the Home Government was necessary. This principle had been ignored or denied by Roger Williams,[79] and violated by the governments of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. Samuell Gorton affirmed it in season and out of season; in its defence suffered imprisonment and stripes, and did not rest until by the aid of Roger Williams at last convinced by his insistency and by the stern logic of events, it was accepted by the Commonwealth, affirmed in its Charter, and embodied in its legislation. So firmly was this principle subsequently engrafted on our Colonial system, that it became our strongest defence against the encroachments of the Mother Country during the Revolutionary struggle and gave us an effective _pou sto_ for the Declaration of Independence. Nor did the severing of the relations with the government of England rupture this thread of law and equity which bound us to our historic past. Ours became the heritage of English Common Law: ours as well as England’s those historic rights and privileges of citizenship handed down from Magna Charta. I answer, secondly, to Samuell Gorton more than to any other, all generations of Americans will owe the insistent affirmation and consistent illustration of the principle of religious individualism which is the logical outcome of the Protestant idea—the principle which strips off the conventional reliance on ritual and organization, and places the individual soul face to face with the problems of life and duty. In our own generation, Ralph Waldo Emerson has been the clearest exponent of this principle. Gorton was the premature John the Baptist of New England Transcendentalism.