In January, 1882, the Unitarian Club of Boston was organized; and it soon after took up the task of erecting the desired building. The initiative was taken at a meeting of the club held December 13, 1882, when Mr. Henry P. Kidder offered to head a subscription for this purpose with the sum of $10,000. The proposal was received with much enthusiasm, and a committee was appointed, consisting of Henry P. Kidder, Charles Faulkner, Charles W. Eliot, William Endicott, Jr., Francis H. Brown, M.D., Dr. John Cordner, Arthur T. Lyman, Henry Grew, Thomas Gaffield, and Rev. Grindall Reynolds, to whom authority was given to raise funds, purchase a lot, and erect a building. It was arranged by this committee that the Association should contribute $50,000 from the sale of its Tremont Place building, and that the club should raise $150,000. Subscriptions were opened February 9, 1883; and in November over $154,000 had been secured. A suitable lot was purchased at the corner of Beacon and Bowdoin Streets, and the erection of the building was begun in 1884. A prolonged labor strike delayed the completion of the building, so that the service of its dedication, which had been arranged for the evening of May 25, 1886, was held in Tremont Temple. The presiding officer on that occasion was George William Curtis; and addresses were made by Drs. Frederic H. Hedge, Andrew P. Peabody, and Horatio Stebbins. In July the building was occupied by the Association. "The denominational house is but brick and stone," said Mr. Reynolds in his report of 1886; "but it is brick and stone which testify to the new hope, vigor, life, which have been coming in these later years into our body, and without which it could not have been reared. It is brick and stone which are the pledges of a noble future, which stimulate to good work, and furnish the means of doing it."[5] [Sidenote: Growth of the Devotional Spirit.]