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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 importance of consecrating our service to the Lord daily, echoing the call from 1 Chronicles 29:5. She highlights the significance of obeying God's will humbly and gladly, as seen in the example of Isaiah. Tileston stresses the need to restore a weakened will by faithfully obeying even the smallest acts of obedience, leading to gradual growth in conformity to God's will. She encourages the congregation to break off evil, uproot sin, and deny self-indulgence as offerings to God, with the promise of receiving faith, life, and love from the eternal Source of love.
The Christian Service
Who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord? --1 CHRONICLES 29:5 My blessed task from day to day Is humbly, gladly, to obey. --HARRIET MCEWEN KIMBALL THE only way to restore a weakened will is by exercising itself in details of duty, it may be in small.est acts of obedience, regularly done, "here a little, and there a little," content to grow by slow degrees into the use of lost powers through repeated acts of observance however trivial or unobserved. Faithful.ness to every smallest call of obedience, as it comes, is the means of gaining gradual accessions of strength, and thus tending more and more to higher degrees of conformity to the Will of God. Only by such simple practical dutifulness can habits be formed. --T. T. CARTER Break off some one evil, seek to uproot some one sin, cut off some one self-indulgence, deny thyself some one vanity; do it as an offering to God, for the love of God, in hope once to see God; and some gleam of faith, and life, and love will stream down upon thy soul from the everlasting Fount of love. Follow on, and thou shalt never lose that track of light. --EDWARD 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.