- Home
- Speakers
- Mary Wilder Tileston
- Satisfied With God Alone
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.
Download
Topic
Sermon Summary
Mary Wilder Tileston preaches about the infinite nature of God, emphasizing that He alone can fill and satisfy our hearts, urging us not to be consumed by worldly cares but to seek communion with God through prayer. She highlights that through Christ, we have access to the heavenly realm, where reverence finds fulfillment and devotion gains strength, allowing us to experience the powers of the world to come.
Satisfied With God Alone
Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord. JEREMIAH 23:24 LET me not dwell so much within My bounded heart, with anxious heed-- Where all my searches meet with sin, And nothing satisfies my need-- It shuts me from the sound and sight Of that pure world of life and light. ANNA L. WARING DO you think that the infinite God cannot fill and satisfy your heart? FRANÇOIS DE LA MOTHE FÉNMON Let not cares, riches, pleasures of this world, choke the heart, which was formed to contain the love of God. Pray, and all is thine. Thine is God Himself, who teacheth thee to pray for Himself. To pray is to go forth from earth, and to live in Heaven. EDWARD B. PUSEY The vision of God is indeed the transfiguration of the world; communion with God is the inspiration of life. That vision, that communion, Christ by His coming had made our abiding inheritance. As often as the Christian touches heaven, the heaven which lies about us though our eyes are holden that we should not see it, he is again filled with the powers of the world to come. Then reverence finds its perfect satisfaction; then devotion finds its invincible strength. BROOKE FOSS WESTCOTT
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download
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.