Innumerable entertainments were held in the church and at homes of the church members. Suppers were given in Fairmount Park during the summer. Every worthy plan for raising money that clever brains could devise and willing hands accomplish was used to swell the building fund. Thus the work went ahead, and in September, 1886, the lot on which The Temple now stands at Broad and Berks was purchased at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars. Thus encouraged with tangible results, the work for the building fund was pushed, if possible, with even greater vigor. Ground was broken for The Temple March 27, 1889. The corner stone was laid July 13, 1890, and on the first of March, 1891, the house was occupied for worship. The only large amount received toward the building fund was a gift of ten thousand dollars on condition that the church be not dedicated until it was free of debt. In a legal sense, calling a building by the name of the congregation worshipping in it is a dedication, and so the building, instead of being called The Grace Baptist Church, was called the Baptist Temple, a name which will probably cling to it while one stone stands upon another. Raising money and erecting a building did not stop the spiritual work of the church. Rather it increased it. People heard of the church through the fairs and various other efforts to raise money, came to the service, perhaps out of curiosity at first, became interested, their hearts were touched and they joined. Never did its spiritual light burn more brightly than in these days of hard work and self-denial. The membership steadily rose, and when Grace Church moved into its new temple of worship, more than twelve hundred members answered the muster roll. CHAPTER XXI OCCUPYING THE TEMPLE The First Sunday. The Building Itself--Its Seating Capacity, Furnishing and Lighting. The Lower Temple and its Various Rooms and Halls. Services Heard by Telephone at the Samaritan Hospital. That was a great day--the first Sunday in the new Temple. Six years of labor and love had gone to its building and now they possessed the land. "During the opening exercises over nine thousand people were present at each service," said the "Philadelphia Press" writing of the event. The throng overflowed into the Lower Temple; into the old church building. The whole neighborhood was full of the joyful members of Grace Baptist Church. The very air seemed to thrill with the spirit of thanksgiving abroad that day. All that Sabbath from sunrise until close to midnight members thronged the building with prayers of thankfulness and praise welling up from glad hearts. Writing from London several years later, Mr. Conwell voiced in words what had been in his mind when the church was planned: