Sacred music on the balcony at midnight also ushers in Christmas and Easter.  “On the street, long before the hour, the crowds gather waiting in reverent silence for the opening of the service,” writes Burdette, in “Temple and Templars.”  “The inspiring strains of ’the English Te Deum,’ ‘Coronation,’ rise on the starlit night, thrilling every soul and suggesting in its triumphant measures, the lines of Perronet’s immortal hymn made sacred by a thousand associations—­’All hail the power of Jesus’ Name.’” “This greeting of the Resurrection, as it floats out over Monument Cemetery just opposite, where sleep so many thousands, does seem like an assurance sent anew from above, cheering those who sleep in Jesus, telling them that as their Lord and King had risen, and now lives again, so shall they live also.  Men looked at the graves of them that slept, listened to the song of triumph that was making the midnight glorious, remembered the risen Christ who was the theme of the song, thought of that other midnight, the riven tomb, the broken power of Death a conquered conqueror, and seemed to hear the Victor’s proclamation as the apostle of the Apocalypse heard it, pealing like a trumpet voice over all the earth, ’I am the first and the last:  I am He that liveth and was dead; and behold, I am alive forevermore; Amen; and have the keys of hell and death!’

“The music continues, the band playing ‘The Gloria,’ ’The Heavens are Telling,’ ‘The Palms’; now and then the listeners join in singing as the airs are more familiar, and ‘What a Friend we Have In Jesus,’ ‘Whiter than Snow,’ ‘Just as I Am,’ and other hymns unite many of the audience on the crowded streets about The Temple in a volunteer choir, and when the doxology, ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow,’ closes the service, hundreds of voices swell the volume of melody that greets the Easter morning.”

CHAPTER XXVII

A typical prayer meeting.

The Prayer Meeting Hall.  How the Meeting is Conducted.  The Giving of Favorite Bible Verses.  Requests for Prayer.  The Lookout Committee.

The prayer meetings of Grace Baptist Church are characterized by a cheery, homelike atmosphere that appeals forcibly and at once to any one who may chance to enter, inclining him to stay and enjoy the service, be he the utmost stranger.

But underneath this and soon felt, is the deep spiritual significance of the meeting, which lays hold on men’s hearts, inspiring, uplifting, sending them home with a sense of having “walked with God” for a little while.

The large prayer meeting hall is usually crowded, the attendance including not only members of the church but hundreds who are not members of any church.  It is no unusual sight to see all the various rooms of the Lower Temple thrown into one by the raising of the sashes, and this vast floor packed as densely as possible, while a fringe of standers lines the edges.  People will come to these prayer meetings though they cannot see the platform, though they must lose much of what is said.  But the spirit of the meeting flows into their hearts and minds, sending them home happier, and with a strengthened determination to live a more righteous life.