Another service very dear to the members of Grace Baptist Church is watch meeting.  The services begin at eight o’clock New Year’s Eve with a prayer meeting which continues until about half after nine.  An intermission follows and usually a committee of young people serve light refreshments for those who want them.  At eleven o’clock the watch meeting begins.  It is a deeply spiritual meeting, opened by the pastor with an earnest prayer for guidance in the year to come, for renewed consecration to the Master’s service, for a better and higher Christian life both as individuals and a church.  Hymns follow and a brief, fervid talk on the year coming and its opportunities, of the record each will write on the clean white page in the book of life to be turned so soon.  As midnight approaches, every church member is asked to signify his re-dedication to God and His service by standing.  Then the solemn question is put to others present if they do not want to give themselves to God, not only for the coming year, but for all years.  As twelve o’clock strikes, all bow in silent prayer while the organ, under the pastor’s touch, softly breathes a sacred melody.

A few minutes later the meeting adjourns, “Happy New Years” are exchanged, and the church orchestra on the iron balcony over the great half rose window on Broad Street breaks into music.

Sometimes an audience of a thousand people gather on the street to listen to this musical sermon, preached at the parting of the ways, a eulogy and a prophecy.  A writer in the “Philadelphia Press” relates the following incident in connection with a watch meeting service: 

“For the last half hour of the old and the first half hour of the new year the band played sacred melodies to the delight of not less than a thousand people assembled on the street.  Diagonally across Broad Street and a short distance below the church is the residence of the late James E. Cooper, P.T.  Barnum’s former partner, the millionaire circus proprietor.  He had been ailing for months and on this night he lay dying.

“Although not a member he had always taken a personal interest in Grace Church, and one of his last acts was the gift of $1,000 to the building fund.  On this night, the first on which The Temple balcony had been used for its specially designed purpose, among the last of earthly sounds that were borne to the ears of the dying man was the music of ‘Coronation’ and ’Old Hundred,’—­hymns that he had learned in childhood.  The watch meeting closed and from a scene of thanksgiving and congratulation Rev. Mr. Conwell hurried to the house of mourning, where he remained at the bedside of the stricken husband and father until the morning light of earth came to the living and the morning of eternity to the dying.”