Like his partner-in-would-be-crime Thomas Bolling, banker John Ludwell-Lofton did not get past his first church in the journey to five churches in the hopes of finding a preacher to bribe to get information about where money was going in the Black community (since it was flowing out of Mr. Ludwell-Lofton's bank).
Mr. Ludwell-Lofton was derailed by gentler means than Thomas Bolling … he had a Black babysitter (formerly known as “mammies”) growing up, and he heard her voice singing:
“There is a balm in Gilead,
To make the wounded whole.
There is a balm in Gilead,
To heal the sin-sick soul.”
Thomas Bolling's schedule had accidentally walked John Ludwell-Lofton up to Beulah Lewis's church, and that beautiful voice, though aged, melted Mr. Ludwell-Lofton's soul. He was indeed drawn in by the music, and came and sat down in the back, cried through Sis. Lewis's solo, and stayed, his heart opened to the entire experience to the point that when the Gospel was preached, it shook him, because for the first time in his life he did not see himself as superior to millions of people, but just a human being who knew he was a sinner like everyone else.
He also found himself realizing, for the first time since childhood, that he didn't have to posture to be a person who could be respected and loved. He didn't have to cover up his feelings of being inferior, of aging, of not being on top of things, of not keeping up in a changing world.
It was just a different thing to realize the possibility of not having to play a god because one could come to Almighty God and be forgiven and be healed … healed of wounds he did not know he had.
Mr. Ludwell-Lofton forgot all about what he had come to do, but came to Christ instead, led by a Black preacher of all things.
He took Sis. Lewis to lunch with her entire family, and forgot all about what he was supposed to have done until the next morning when it was time to go to work.
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