Charles R. Shelton, 32°, K.C.C.H.
8112 Westwood Avenue, Little Rock, Arkansas 72204-8345

A moment of panic during the presentation of its Lecture only serves to confirm the beauty and significance of the 14°.

"The practical object of Masonry is the physical and moral amelioration and the intellectual and spiritual improvement of individuals and Society…." Thus begins an eight-minute Lecture in the Fourteenth Degree. The Lecture clearly embodies, I was told, the whole of the truths and instructions contained in the first Three Degrees of Freemasonry. I was told this in 1986 by Ill. William J. Glasscock, 33°, who was, at the time, Executive Secretary of the Scottish Rite Bodies in the Orient of Arkansas, Valley of Little Rock. Ill. Bill shared this opinion with me, then a freshly raised Master Mason who had come through the Consistory a couple of weeks before. My eyes were still glistening with the Light of a three-day Reunion presenting the Fourth through the Thirty-second Scottish Rite Degrees. The beauty I had beheld during those three days had prompted me to visit with the Secretary to see if there was any way that he thought a neophyte like myself could become a part of sharing the feeling in my heart with others who would follow.

After talking with me for about 15 minutes, Brother Glasscock went to a vault and removed about seven single-spaced typewritten pages, which were stapled together at the top corner. I had experienced little trouble learning my lectures for the Blue Lodge Degrees. Collectively, they were demanding and required far more time to deliver than the Scottish Rite text I had just been presented, but they were accomplished by correctly answering the questions posed by my instructor. The pauses used by the instructor in his careful questions gave me enough time to phrase my answers and were actually cues to prompt my memory. In this new undertaking, I was to be alone behind the altar, delivering those eight minutes to a class of several hundred Candidates with nobody to turn to for help. (Unbeknownst to me, there was a prompter behind the beautiful drapes and curtains who was following my oration from a printed copy.) Thankfully, I was not told of this "crutch," so I did not use it.

Fourteenth Degree Regalia Painting by Brother Robert H. White, 32°

For the first three Reunions, I had a stack of typewritten 3" x 5" cue cards lying on the altar, out of sight to the Brethren. After each class, I would seclude myself, go back over the oration, and often discover that I had left out a part of a phrase. I would later admit these errors to the Venerable Master of the Degree, and he would very kindly assure me that he had not caught the infractions. Also, he reminded me that the Candidates could not have possibly known.

Then, at my fourth Reunion, I had carefully placed my cue cards on the altar prior to the beginning of the Degree and confidently went through the ritual leading up to time for my oration, which is given with the Venerable Master about 20 feet behind me, at his station in the East. As I cleared my throat to begin, I looked down at the altar for my cards, my "crutch." They were not there! With great trepidation, I began my discourse, panic stricken that I would hit a blank in my memory and ruin the Degree. As I nervously paced behind the altar, delivering the oration, I turned a little and glanced back at the Master, who had the most cherubic-or possibly devilish-smile on his face. There he was holding my cue cards where I could see them!

Ill. Joe Neel Scarsdale, 33°

I got through the oration without a flaw, and, to my complete surprise, the Venerable Master raised his hands and started applauding. Applause immediately spread through the Class and the Brothers who were in attendance, including Ill. William Nash, 33°, S.G.I.G. in Arkansas. Ill. Nash had been a revered friend of mine for years before I had petitioned the Blue Lodge. With a slight bow to those present, I went back to my station, and the Degree ended. When we got back to the Robing Room, all the fellows were there waiting, and the Venerable Master, the late Ill. Joe N. Scarsdale, 33°, was at the front of the group.

He said that he had wished that his station had been in front of me, so he could have seen my face when I looked down for the missing cue cards. Then he paid me the highest compliment I have ever received: he said he knew I didn't need the cards as a crutch, so he took them with him back to his station after he presented me to the Class as the Orator. At that time, Joe, though an extremely competent ritualist, was still a K.C.C.H., and it was not too long later that I was also granted the distinct honor of a red Scottish Rite cap. I still believe what Bill Glasscock told me: this oration does say more about Freemasonry than any one thing I have read or heard since. I have been making the oration for more than 15 years, and its words stir my soul as deeply now as they did 15 years ago. I am grateful for the opportunity to present it.

Charles R. Shelton is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas. After his military service in WW II, he returned home and began a banking career at a local bank, where he worked for nearly 40 years, retiring as Vice President in 1985. Because a man he worked with waited for 15 years before Charlie asked him about Masonry, then pulled a petition out of his briefcase already filled in with his name, Bro. Shelton feels he missed years of Freemasonry. Bro. Charlie is Past Master and current Secretary of Western Star Lodge No. 2 in Little Rock. The Lodge is about to celebrate its 165th year of continuous operation. A member of the Scottish Rite Bodies of Little Rock, Bro. Shelton was given the part of Orator in the 14th Degree in 1986, a part he still delivers, with great humility, today.