Compiled by three siblings from Waverly, Tennessee—John Vinus Kirkland (1867–1918), Robert Samuel Kirkland (1865–1933), and Anderson Melville Kirkland (1860–1919)—Apostolic Hymns pairs mainline and old-school Baptist hymn texts with an eclectic range of music, including early urban gospel and church hymnody alongside fuging tunes and revival choruses associated with dispersed harmony. Primitive Baptist elders at the time of publication, the Kirkland brothers later joined the Missionary Baptist Church following a series of early twentieth-century controversies over church polity. One notable allegation charged J. V. Kirkland with using Methodist hymnals in a Palmersville, Tennessee, Sunday school. Prominent Primitive Baptist hymnal editors T. B. Ausmus, John Daily, and C. H. Cayce eventually became some of the Kirklands’ most vigorous detractors. In the virulent pamphlet wars of 1904–07, Ausmus, Daily, and Cayce printed pointed critiques of the Kirkland brothers, whose musically modern tendencies threatened more conservative approaches.

—Erin Fulton