Some time after, the doctor, finding him a little irregularly busy in the library, gave him a writing exercise for punishment, and, that he might not be deceived by any artifice, locked the door.
'His crime was for being a felon in verse, And presenting his theft to the king; The first was a trick not uncommon or scarce, But the last was an impudent thing: Yet what he had stol'n was so little worth stealing, They forgave him the damage and cost; Had he ta'en the whole ode, as he took it piece-mealing, They had fin'd him but ten pence at most.'
In 1710, Yalden became fellow of the college; and next year, entering into orders, he was briefly rector of Sopworth, Wiltshire, before being presented by the society with a living in Warwickshire, consistent with his fellowship, and chosen lecturer of moral philosophy, a very honourable office.
He was made rector of Chalton and Cleanville, two adjoining towns and benefices in Hertfordshire, and had the prebends or sinecures of Deans, Hains, and Pendles in Devonshire.
From this time he seems to have led a quiet and inoffensive life, till the clamour was raised about Francis Atterbury's plot to capture the royal family.
Every loyal eye was on the watch for abettors or partakers of the horrid conspiracy; and Dr. Yalden, having some acquaintance with the bishop, and being familiarly conversant with Kelly his secretary, fell under suspicion, and was taken into custody.
Thus pressed, he told them that the words had lain unheeded in his pocket-book from the time of queen Anne, and that he was ashamed to give an account of them; but the truth was that he had gratified his curiosity one day by hearing Daniel Burgess in the pulpit, and those words were a memorial hint of a remarkable sentence by which he warned his congregation to 'beware of thorough-paced doctrine, that doctrine which coming in at one ear passes through the head, and goes out at the other.