The original of this poem has thirteen stanzas, the first of which reads:
Souls of men! why will ye scatter
Like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts! why will ye wander
From a love so true and deep?
The five stanzas selected for use here make an impressive and coherent hymn with no trace of the author’s strong Roman Catholic bias which characterizes nearly all of his hymns.
For comments on F. W. Faber see [Hymn 44].
MUSIC. WELLESLEY was written, by request, for the graduation hymn of the Newton (Mass.) high school class of which Miss Tourjee was then a member. The original tune had a slight fault in voice leading which was corrected, with her permission, by Dr. Hamilton C. Macdougall, then Professor of Music at Wellesley College.
Lizzie S. Tourjee, 1858-1913, was a student at Wellesley College during the year 1877-78. In 1883, she married Frank Estabrook. Her father, Dr. Eben Tourjee, encouraged her in the writing of the tune, and named it for the new college nearby where she became a student for one year.