Editing Cosmo Gordon Lang (section)

===Magdalen College===

As Magdalen's Dean of Divinity (college chaplain),<ref>{{cite web|title= Chapel and Choir|url= http://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/chapel-and-choir|publisher=Magdalen College Oxford|access-date=30 July 2009}}</ref> Lang had [[pastoral care|pastoral duties]] with the college's undergraduates and responsibility for the chapel and its choir. Lang was delighted with this latter obligation; his concern for the purity of the choir's sound led him to request that visitors "join in the service silently".<ref name= L101/> In 1894 Lang was asked to add to his workload by acting as Vicar of the [[University Church of St Mary the Virgin]], where [[John Henry Newman]] had begun his Oxford ministry in 1828.<ref>Connolly, p. 3</ref> The church had almost ceased to function when Lang took it over, but he revived regular services, chose preachers with care and slowly rebuilt the congregation.<ref>Lockhart, pp. 109–12</ref> In December 1895 he was offered the post of Vicar of [[Portsea, Portsmouth|Portsea]], a large parish within [[Portsmouth]] on the south coast, but he was not ready to leave Oxford and refused. Some months later he had further thoughts; the strain of his dual appointment in Oxford was beginning to tell and, he claimed, "the thought of this great parish [of Portsea] and work going a-begging troubled my conscience." After discovering that the Portsea offer was still open, he decided to accept, though with some misgiving.<ref>Lockhart, pp. 113–15</ref>