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  THE IDEAL LIFE
  by Mary Wilder Tileston
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Summary: The ideal life is one that strives for greatness and nobility,
regardless of circumstances, by staying true to high ideals and
maintaining a sense of zeal and high desire.

Topics: "Righteous Living", "Spiritual Growth"
Scripture References: Proverbs 4:23, Isaiah 48:18, Galatians 6:9, Philippians 3:14, 1 Timothy 4:12

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DESCRIPTION
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Mary Wilder Tileston emphasizes the importance of heeding God's
commandments to experience peace and righteousness abundantly. She warns
against becoming desensitized to evil, complacent in one's comfort, and
neglectful of pursuing high aims and great deeds. Tileston challenges
the notion that only saints and enthusiasts possess the zeal for good
works, suggesting that all individuals can keep the flame of zeal alive
throughout their lives. She encourages living with high ideals as the
key to a successful life, highlighting that striving for noble pursuits
strengthens the soul.

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CONTENT
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Oh, that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace
been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.

--ISAIAH 48:18

IT is so easy to become more thick-skinned in con.science, more tolerant
of evil, more hopeless of good, more careful of one's own comfort and
one's own property, more self-satisfied in leaving high aims and great
deeds to enthusiasts, and then to believe that one is growing older and
wiser. And yet those high examples, those good works, those great
triumphs over evil, which single hands effect sometimes, we are all
grateful for, when they are done, whatever we may have said of the
doing. But we speak of saints and enthusiasts for good, as if some
special gifts were made to them in middle age which are withheld from
other men. Is it not rather that some few souls keep alive the lamp of
zeal and high desire which God lights for most of us while life is
young?

--JULIANA HORATIA EWING

To live with a high ideal is a successful life. It is not what one does,
but what one tries to do, that makes the soul strong and fit for a noble
career.

--E. P. TENNEY

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/mary-wilder-tileston/the-ideal-life/
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