Think gently of the erring [one]. [Gentleness.] This hymn is given in the American Universalist's Hymns for Christian Devotion, by Adams and Chapin, Boston, 1846, No. 813, in 2 stanzas of 8 lines, and headed “Compassion for the Sinning." It is there given as by "Miss Fletcher," a writer to us otherwise unknown. It is in the awkward metre of 7.6.8.6.8.6.8.6. As usually found in modern American hymnbooks it is in CM. as given in H. W. Beecher's Plymouth Collection, 1855, No. 1062, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines; but sometimes with the omission of stanza iii.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)