 As Magdalen 's Dean of Divinity ( " college chaplain " in ordinary parlance ) , Lang had 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 " . 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 . 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 . In December 1895 he was offered the post of Vicar of 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 . 
