The mystery of preaching

[Thomas] Cook was an itinerant Methodist preacher who was much used of God in Britain and overseas. On one occasion he was to make a week-end visit to a church, and the Christian home where he was to be given hospitality was full of expectation. There was a maid servant in that house, however, who was not a Christian. She could not understand the fuss in preparation for the preacher, and on going to the butcher’s shop to collect the meat on the Saturday morning before his arrival, she declared to the butcher, ‘You would think that Jesus Christ was coming.’ That Sunday something happened to her under the preaching of this man. When she was in the shop again the next Tuesday, the butcher remembered her irreverence and asked light-heartedly if Jesus Christ had come. With great earnestness the girl replied, ‘Yes. He came.’

(Iain Murray, Lloyd-Jones Messenger of Grace, page 54)