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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 the responsibility that comes with the blessings and gifts we receive from God, emphasizing that much is required from those who have been given much. She reflects on how God continually seeks entrance into our hearts, presenting various opportunities for us to turn to Him through His providence, afflictions, compassion, and presence in our lives. Tileston challenges listeners to consider the numerous ways God has reached out to them for a lasting conversion, urging them to recognize the grace and blessings bestowed upon them and to respond with a heart of gratitude and obedience.
To Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Required
Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required. LUKE 12:48 GOD is ever seeking an entrance, and the avenue to the heart is closed against Him; He enters in, and is rudely thronged, or jostled, or civilly put off, or promised an audience at a more convenient season, if He is not, by deadly sin, cast out. How many calls by God's providence, by the tender austerity of His afflictions, by His compassion, His bounties, by the deaths of others, or our own prolonged lives when we seemed nigh unto death, by the beauty of truth, by the unsatisfactoriness of things present, by some sight, even if afar off, of things eternal, by the sense of His presence by the ocean of whose love we are encompassed, by some sensible sweetness over-streaming us,--any one of these might have been a lasting conversion to God, and where have they left us? Above the common gifts to all, our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; besides that universal gift of "the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ," we thank Him for that which is varied to each, "the means of grace." What we have had might have made glorious saints of those who have had less. E. B. PUSEY
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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.