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Mary Wilder Tileston
Mary Wilder Tileston was born on August 20, 1843, in Salem, Massachusetts, to Caleb Foote, owner and editor of the Salem Gazette, and Mary Wilder White Foote. Raised in a family with strong intellectual and religious ties—her brother Henry Wilder Foote became a Harvard-educated minister, and her brother Arthur Foote a noted composer—she attended private schools in Salem. On September 25, 1865, she married John Boies Tileston, a publisher’s son, and they had seven children: Mary, Margaret, Roger, Amelia, Wilder, Edith, and Eleanor. The family lived in Concord, Massachusetts, on a 200-acre farm from around 1874 to 1882, then moved to Salem and later Brookline, Massachusetts, where she died on July 3, 1934. Tileston’s career was centered on her literary contributions rather than preaching. Her most notable work, Daily Strength for Daily Needs, a collection of prose, verse, and scripture for daily reading, sold over 250,000 copies by 1910 and was highly regarded. She compiled other devotionals, including Prayers Ancient and Modern (1897) and children’s works like The Child’s Harvest of Verse (1910), reflecting her love for spiritual literature. While not a preacher by occupation, her anthologies served a preaching-like function, offering spiritual guidance to readers. Her legacy lies in these writings, which continue to inspire, rather than in a formal ministerial role.
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Mary Wilder Tileston emphasizes the strength and power that God provides to His people, praising and blessing Him for His faithfulness. The sermon encourages facing distress, pain, and even death with a brave and glad heart, knowing that those defended by the Almighty and counted as friends by the Highest cannot ultimately perish. Trusting in the unseen Presence and support of God, turning to Him in times of loneliness, disappointment, or depression, brings a different perspective to life, filled with the assurance of His all-embracing care and perfect love. The sermon highlights the importance of seeking to do what is pleasing in God's sight, trusting in His wisdom, love, and power, and finding rest in surrendering our desires to His will.
Trusting in God
The God of Israel is He that giveth strength and power unto His people. Blessed be God. --PSALMS 68:35 I WILL meet distress and pain, I will greet e'en Death's dark reign, I will lay me in the grave With a heart still glad and brave; Whom the Strongest doth defend, Whom the Highest counts His friend, Cannot perish in the end. --PAUL GERHARDT COULD we but live more entirely in the unseen Presence, and trust to the unseen support,--and if lonely, or disappointed, or depressed, turn more quickly to God, fully confident of His all-embracing care, believing in His perfect love, the tender sym.pathy with which He ever regards us, how different life would be from what it ordinarily is! Yet we doubt not that Divine support is assured to us, if we seek to do what is pleasing in His sight. If the end we desire comes not, yet there is rest in the assurance that we have told Him all, and left it to Him to do what He wills. --T. T. CARTER How reasonable it is to trust ourselves to the keep.ing of infinite love, and infinite wisdom, and infinite power! --THOMAS ERSKINE
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Mary Wilder Tileston was born on August 20, 1843, in Salem, Massachusetts, to Caleb Foote, owner and editor of the Salem Gazette, and Mary Wilder White Foote. Raised in a family with strong intellectual and religious ties—her brother Henry Wilder Foote became a Harvard-educated minister, and her brother Arthur Foote a noted composer—she attended private schools in Salem. On September 25, 1865, she married John Boies Tileston, a publisher’s son, and they had seven children: Mary, Margaret, Roger, Amelia, Wilder, Edith, and Eleanor. The family lived in Concord, Massachusetts, on a 200-acre farm from around 1874 to 1882, then moved to Salem and later Brookline, Massachusetts, where she died on July 3, 1934. Tileston’s career was centered on her literary contributions rather than preaching. Her most notable work, Daily Strength for Daily Needs, a collection of prose, verse, and scripture for daily reading, sold over 250,000 copies by 1910 and was highly regarded. She compiled other devotionals, including Prayers Ancient and Modern (1897) and children’s works like The Child’s Harvest of Verse (1910), reflecting her love for spiritual literature. While not a preacher by occupation, her anthologies served a preaching-like function, offering spiritual guidance to readers. Her legacy lies in these writings, which continue to inspire, rather than in a formal ministerial role.