Return, O wanderer, return

Return, O wanderer, return. William Bengo Collyer* (1782-1854). First published in the Evangelical Magazine (May 1806), in six LM stanzas. It had the heading ‘Is Ephraim my dear son? &c’ (from Jeremiah 31: 18-20), referred to movingly in the final stanza (‘Regain thy long-sought rest’), which is hardly ever used. It subsequently appeared in Collyer’s Hymns partly collected and partly original (1812), entitled ‘The Backslider’, signed ‘W.B.C.’  Most books print five stanzas. The Plymouth Collection* of Hymns and Tunes (New York, 1855), edited by Henry Ward Beecher*, printed four stanzas in CM:                 Collyer, 1812...