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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 God's everlasting love for us, drawing us close with His lovingkindness. She emphasizes the importance of using life's circumstances to draw near to God and prepare for eternity. God longs for our feeble love because it brings Him joy and allows Him to make us supremely happy. By loving God, who is ever lovely, we can become lovely ourselves and experience the fullness of His love and presence.
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He Longs for Our Love
Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. JEREMIAH 31:3 MY song is love unknown; My Saviour's love to me; Love to the loveless shown, That they might lovely be. SAMUEL CROSSMAN HE so governs and shapes all the circumstances of life, that if we use them aright we may draw near to Him here, and prepare to be near Him in the Forever after. He longs for our love,--our love, which is so feeble and faint, and yet so precious in His sight when we give it to Him freely. And why does He so desire it? Ah! I have told you many times before, and yet we cannot too often remember it, that it is because, if we love Him, He can make us supremely happy. All that belongs to us, or occurs to us, in this life, is so ordered that we may find in it the means of putting far from us those obstructions of evil which prevent us from seeing Him as He is, and as He has revealed Himself to us; for if we did but so see Him, how could we fail to love Him with the whole heart and soul? THEOPHILUS PARSONS How shall we become lovely? By loving Him who is ever lovely. ST. AUGUSTINE
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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.