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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 power of prayer in the Christian life, emphasizing the privilege and blessing of being able to ask God for our needs and desires in Jesus' name, promising that we will receive and our joy will be full. She highlights the misconception of prayer as a task rather than a gift of access to God's fullness and grace, urging believers to embrace prayer as a means to experience love, trust, serenity, peace, and joy in their walk with God.
Joy of the Lord
Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name, ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. JOHN 16:24 GOD'S "ask" Meaneth all fulness and all grace, Access in every time and place; Yet we To whom this mercy is so free, This privilege of light to bask In the full sunshine of His face, Regard prayer even as a task. ANNA E. HAMILTON THERE is some power we have not yet discovered, some secret as yet unknown--but oh! what a marvelous power! what a blessed secret! that can make the Christian life a life of love, and trust, and bright serenity; something different from the duty-life, which, though real, does not satisfy; having all the activity and earnestness of the duty-life, but having with it the peace and joy which many and many a soul is craving. WILLIAM R. HUNTINGTON We do not value as we ought our inestimable privilege of being allowed to worship God. We do not prize our heavenly prerogative of being permitted to keep His commandments. We look at that as an obligation which is more properly a boon. FREDERICK W. FABER
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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.