“The Pure, the Bright, the Beautiful” was published in The Athenaeum Collection of Hymns and Tunes for Church and Sunday School, which was submitted for copyright deposit on December 9, 1863, by Horace Waters.

The author of the text was Charles Dickens, who published the text anonymously under the title “Imperishable” in All the Year Round 7 (June 21, 1862). Foster wrote the words to an additional two verses however, which were included at the bottom of the score. When these verses are sung, the song becomes a religious hymn, “We’ll Tune Our Hearts.” 

According to Evelyn Foster Morneweck’s The Chronicles of Stephen Foster’s Family:

Of the forty-six songs published by Stephen in 1863, he wrote the lyrics (as they are called today for some unknown reason) of only seventeen. It seemed as though the work of producing both words and music had become an effort for Stephen Foster although his own verses always suited his melodies far better than anyone else’s. The caption of “Oh! There’s No Such Girl as Mine,” entered for copyright by Horace Waters on March 10, 1863, states that the song is “Written and Composed by Stephen C. Foster,” but the verses are not Stephen’s. They are identical with those of a song of the same name by Samuel Lover, famous Irish poet and composer, who is best known in this country for “The Low Back’d Car,” “Widow Machree,” and “Rory O’More.” This was probably a mistake of the publishers, for Samuel Lover’s compositions were too well known in America in the ’6o’s for any writer to claim title to Lover’s poetry even if Stephen had been the sort to do such a thing, which he was not. The words of “The Pure, the Bright, the Beautiful,” which is contained in a collection of gospel songs copyrighted by Horace Waters in 1863, have been traced by the late Walter Whittlesey, of the Library of Congress, to no less a person than Charles Dickens.

However, Stephen appended two verses of his own to the tune he set to Charles Dickens’ words and called his hymn “We’ll Tune Our Hearts.” Stephen’s composition is as good as the average innocuous gospel hymn, but lacks in the quality that made Stephen Foster a great composer.