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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 preaches about aligning our will with God's will to avoid unnecessary crosses in our lives. She emphasizes that God's ways are just and right, guiding us in the correct path. Tileston highlights the importance of surrendering our stubborn wills to God's upright will, which cuts through pride, dreams, and distractions. She reminds us that when we deviate from God's path, we create our own crosses, not the ones meant for us to bear in following Jesus.
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Bearing Crosses Made by Ourselves
And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. ISAIAH 30:21 The ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them. HOSEA 14:9 YET more and more this truth doth shine From failure and from loss, The will that runs transverse to Thine Doth thereby make its cross: Thine upright will Cuts straight and still Through pride and dream and dross. W. M. L. JAY LET us remember that it is not God who makes many of the crosses that we find in our way, such as we commonly call "crosses." Our Heavenly Father makes "straight paths for our feet," and, if we would go in His way, if we would straighten our wills to His will, and lay them side by side, there would be no crosses. But when the path that God points out goes north and south, and our stubborn wills lead us east and west, the consequence is "a cross"--a cross of our own making, not that which our Master bids us "take up and carry after Him," and of which it has been well said, "He always carries the heaviest end Himself." ANNIE WEBB-PEPLOE
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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.