Who was Samuell Gorton? What part did he play in our Colonial history? These questions let us briefly answer before we attempt a somewhat careful study of his religious and political opinions, about which there has been so much misunderstanding. Samuell Gorton was born in the parish of Gorton, England, a few miles from the present bustling city of Manchester, about the year 1592.[7] He came of a good family, “not entirely unknown,” says Judge Brayton, “to the heraldry of England.”[8] Here, as Gorton himself declares, “the fathers of his body had dwelt for generations.” We know but little about his early life. Though he did not attend any of the celebrated schools or universities of England, his education seems to have been carefully conducted by private tutors.[9] As with many other students of his day, the Bible was his principal text-book. He could read it in the original: he was a master of both Greek and Hebrew. And he brought to the reading a vigorous intellect and a more original and independent judgment than is commonly applied to theological studies. Samuell Gorton probably dwelt in the vicinity of his birthplace until he was about twenty-five years of age.[10] Here he made the acquaintance of a Separatist Elder, afterwards connected with the church in Holland, whence came the Mayflower Pilgrims. His mind readily assimilated the spirit of the Puritan revolt against the degenerate formalism of the times; yet his Puritanism was without taint of dogmatic narrowness. He always retained an affection for the church of his fathers. “I drew my tenets,” he says, “from the breasts of my mother, the Church of England.”[11] In his early manhood he left Gorton and went to seek his fortune in the great English metropolis. In London he engaged in business, and built for himself a home. In a certain conveyance signed during his residence there, he is described as “Samuell Gorton, clothier,” and also as “Professor of the misteries of Christ.” Religion and daily occupation were never divorced in his consciousness. He would not make a trade of the former, nor could he conduct the latter on a plane inconsistent with those moral and religious principles which dominated his life. His business as a “clothier,” in the phraseology of the day, was that of a branch of manufacturing—the finishing of cloths after weaving. It is doubtful whether he met with great pecuniary rewards in his chosen industry. His enemies afterwards said that he left London in debt, to avoid imprisonment threatened by his creditors. Of this there is no valid evidence; we may dismiss it on the authority of his explicit denial.[12] “I left my native country,” he said, “to enjoy libertie of conscience in respect to faith towards God, and for no other end.”