The Masonic Book Club, Vol. 25

In his Prestonian Lecture for 1986 entitled 'The Old Charges with an appendix Reconstituting the ’Standard Original Version,’' Wallace McLeod stated 'The ’Old Charges’ have kindled the imagination of Freemasons for centuries, and hundreds of pages have been written about them.' Therefore, it was no wonder that the Masonic Book Club chose The Regius Poem for its first volume in 1970 and has followed it in later years with Andersons Constitutions , The Old Gothic Constitutions and this year with The Constitutions of Saints Johns Lodge otherwise known as the Carmick Manuscript. This, the newest document is unique in that it was discovered in the United States and it more Christian in nature than many others. Another unique characteristic is a page containing a rough drawing of the lodge which seems to be an ancestor of the tracing board such as are discussed in the 1939 Prestonian Lecture by G.E.W. Bridge 'Veiled in Allegory and Illustrated By Symbols.'In 1971 the Club published The Constitutions of the Freemasons , a reprint of Andersons book by Benjamin Franklin and at the time called it '...the most important Masonic book ever published. It has been reprinted and reproduced in facsimile more often than any other Masonic book.' In 1994, your directors have seen appropriate to reprint a book which has not been reprinted as often and yet is unique for several reasons as stated above. The importance of the Carmick MS. to the growth and development of Freemasonry in the United States is quite controversial existing at the center of a debate as to which should be considered the cradle of Freemasonry in the United States; a recognized Grand Lodge in Massachusetts or the 'by time immemorial ' lodges in Pennsylvania. A full account of the controversy and of Freemasonry in Pennsylvania may be found in Early Freemasonry in Pennsylvania by Henry S. Borneman which may be obtained from the Grand Lodge of that State.