‘Our Stations and Places’

    

Sure, the First Manhattan District has the eldest lodges, and the Tenth Manhattan has the exotic lodges, and the Ninth has all the lager and schnitzel, but the Glorious Fourth Manhattan has the Book Club!

Its next meeting via Zoom is scheduled for Wednesday, July 27 at 8 p.m. Master Masons only. Contact the Square Club for login information.

It’s a classic but not very old (1938) text this time: Our Stations and Places by Henry G. Meacham, which he dedicates to “the Seekers of Light and the souls with a hunger to grow.” As you might infer from its title, this book is a guide for lodge officers. (Seems to me to be a trusted source on the Craft in the eyes of religious kook anti-Masons—so you know it has to be good! And, humorously enough, the book includes an appendix titled “Why Freemasonry Has Enemies.”)

Updated by Michael Poll for Cornerstone Book Publishers in 2019, Our Stations and Places is available from that publishing house and your preferred online retailer, or via Grand Lodge Services. Expect to pay around $17.

Meacham was Grand Lecturer of our Grand Lodge eighty or so years ago, and Grand Lodge published the book.

My congratulations to the Book Club for selecting a title that has practical value to the Masonic reader. With our lodge installations upon us, Our Stations and Places provides idiomatic New York lodge and Grand Lodge understandings for new and advancing lodge officers. Some of the ideas sound dated, but that’s okay.