Paul L. Whitfield, 33°
6028 Bentway Drive
Charlotte, North Carolina, 28226–8051

A speech by Senator Ervin restores a Brother's sense of faith.

Photo: Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., 33°, Scottish Rite Hall of Honor Portrait
The auditorium was jammed. Fifteen hundred or more North Carolina Masons were milling about, waiting for the Masonic Convocation to get underway. Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., 33°, was a key speaker.

It was the early 1980s. The Watergate scandal, where Senator Sam was Chairman of the Select Committee to Investigate the 1972 Presidential Campaign Activities, was far behind us. The Senator was one of the few figures to emerge from the affair unsoiled and with enhanced public respect.

I had seen "Senator Sam," as he was commonly called, on the campaign trail and was familiar with the homespun humor for which he was famous. As a law student, I had heard the Senator lecture to government officials at the Institute of Government at Chapel Hill. I knew there was a serious side to the Senator, but I was totally unprepared for what I was to hear that day.

He began his remarks on a spiritual plane. He said that, as a young lawyer, he was skeptical. He had some trouble, he said, understanding the concept of eternal life. As I sat in rapt attention, along with everyone else, waiting to hear Sam's wisdom, I thought how skeptical I had been and how as a young lawyer I demanded proofs of everything. Here was a man who had done it all—a successful country lawyer, a county judge, a Superior Court Judge, a Supreme Court Justice, a United States Senator, 33° Inspector General Honorary—telling me he had the same doubts and misgivings about this problem that I did. I decided to listen closely. He went on to explain that he finally deduced it was no more difficult to believe in life after death than it was to believe in life itself, for they were both "miracles of God."

I didn't hear anything else the Senator said that morning. I didn't need to. As far as I was concerned, he had said it all. I was no longer a skeptic, I no longer needed the physical proofs I used to worry about as a young lawyer. Senator Sam had shared the simplicity of the truth called Faith.

As I drove west on the interstate out of Raleigh that day, I thought of Chapter 2 in Hebrews, a part of the New Testament some call the "Hall of Faith." Faith is described as the assurance, the confirmation, and the title deed of the things we hope for, being the proof of things we do not see and the conviction of their reality. Faith perceives as fact what is not revealed to the senses.

I didn't need any more proof after what Sam said. I was satisfied that he was totally correct and that the truth was as simple as the words he spoke.

Looking at the ribbon of concrete I was driving on and the steel and glass buildings of the North Carolina State University at Raleigh on my left, I thought of II Corinthians 4:18: "We look not to the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are visible are temporal [brief and fleeting]; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

I had heard the truth that day from the mouth of Senator Sam. It confirmed what my radio pastor, Steve Brown, reminds me of from time to time: "It is impossible to unsee the truth."

  Paul L. Whitfield
is a Past Master of Meridian Lodge No. 728, Charlotte, North Carolina, a member of the Valley of Charlotte, and Past Potentate of Oasis Temple of the Shrine. Formerly a Staff Attorney for the City of Charlotte and Prosecuting Attorney for the Charlotte City Court, he now practices law in Charlotte. He is a member, among other organizations, of Charlotte Sertoma Club, Dilworth Rotary Club, North Carolina Jaycees, Carmel Presbyterian Church, and is a Lay Preacher, Charlotte Presbytery, active in Lay Renewal Ministry.