Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/24

 4 I say ?) so daringly good and honest in principle" that their guest believed himself to be amongst the primitive christians in the first century. The colours of this halcyon picture soon faded away.

The weakness of Rundle revealed itself to the critical eye of Thomas Emlyn, the first unitarian minister in England. He was not so temperate and abstemious as a confessor for the faith ought to be, and Emlyn was not long in remarking that he "did not seem cut out for such sufferings as counsellors are to expect." The truth forced itself upon poor Whiston with even more directness. He was invited to "eat a cheesecake" with Talbot and Rundle, but when the innocent heretic went he found "such a collation of wine and sweet-meats prepared as little corresponded to the terms of the invitation." The secret of the repast was soon disclosed. They announced their intention to sign the 39 articles and to take preferment in the church. Whiston broke out into bitter reproaches and continued his sarcasms in after years. Some time afterwards, on being told that Rundle attributed the "apostolical constitutions" to the fourth century, he threw out the sarcasm "make him dean of Durham and they will not be written till the fifth."

The good offices of his friend's father William Talbot, then bishop of Salisbury, were quickly exercised. Rundle was ordained deacon on 29 July, 1716, and priest a week later. He was at once appointed the bishop's domestic chaplain and before the year ran out was made prebendary of the cathedral church. In July of the following year he was promoted to a better prebendal stall, in April 1720 he became archdeacon of Wilts and in January 172 1 he succeeded his friend, Talbot, in the treasurership of the cathedral. These preferments did not exhaust the bishop's good will, for he gave him in 1719 the vicarage of Inglesham and in 1720 the rectory of Poulshot, both of them in Wiltshire.