The liberty of using a parish church was also enjoyed by the Nonconformists of Waltham-le-Willows, a small village in Suffolk, and in connection with this arrangement there occurred a ludicrous circumstance. On one occasion when Mr. Salkeld, the Congregational minister, occupied the pulpit, Sir Edmund Bacon, of Redgrave, and Sir William Spring, of Packenham, being greatly scandalized at what they deemed a profanation of the edifice, came, with other country gentlemen, and planted themselves at the church-doors. Sir Edmund wished to compel the minister immediately to desist, but Sir William thought it more seemly to wait until the minister had finished his discourse. A noisy altercation consequently arose in the church-yard between the two gentlemen, when, upon the former becoming outrageously violent, his friend observed, “We read, Sir Edmund, that the devil entered into a herd of swine, and, upon my word, I think he is not got out of the Bacon yet.”[305] [Sidenote: RELIGIOUS STATISTICS.] VI. Perhaps this is as convenient a place as any to inquire into the relative number of Conformists and Nonconformists, towards the end of the period, embraced in this History. The population of England towards the close of the seventeenth century, has been computed by Lord Macaulay at rather more than five millions.[306] He bases his estimate upon calculations made by King, Lancaster Herald, in 1696; upon returns consulted by William III., and upon conclusions drawn in the preface to the population returns of 1831. I find the estimate of about five millions confirmed by the author of _The Happy Future State of England_, published in 1688, who states an approximate number as the result of returns reported in a survey made by the Bishops in 1676.[307] Of these five millions and a half, or so, the Conformists formed an immense majority. In the returns which came under William’s eye, and in the report of the Bishops’ survey,--which seems to have been all but identical with them,--the Conformists, above sixteen years of age, in the province of Canterbury are put down at 2,123,362. York yields 353,892, making a total of 2,477,254. Against these are reckoned the following number of Nonconformists above sixteen years of age:--93,151 in the province of Canterbury, and 15,525 in the province of York--forming a gross amount of 108,676. The Conformists to the Nonconformists here are as 22⅘ to 1. The author I have just mentioned represents the Nonconformists as on the decline; and no doubt they were, during the reigns of Charles II. and James II., much fewer than they had been under the Commonwealth; but there is reason to believe, from their subsequent history, they were on the increase before the period of the Revolution. The same writer speaks of them, in the gross, as consisting of artizans and retail traders in corporations,[308] and probably the bulk of them would be found amongst the humbler classes; but it is to be remembered