The Imperial Sunday Alliance by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 18, 1913

The Imperial Sunday Alliance

By C. M. S.

We have had occasion to speak at different times of the work and object of the Imperial Sunday Alliance,—that organization which is carrying on in England the same work that has been undertaken in Canada and the United States by the Lord’s Day Alliances. Many of our readers would doubtless be interested in seeing the Imperial Alliance’s own statement of—

“What It Is, and Why It Is Wanted”

Under this heading the alliance publishes its answer to the question above quoted. We quote the document entire that our readers may see what the organization comprises and what it proposes to do.

It is a rallying point which has long been needed by those who, in all parts of the country, are taking part in the great battle for our English Sunday, as the national weekly day of rest and of worship.

It is a broad and simple bond of union, based on the bed-rock of the divine law and of human necessity, for one great purpose—to win back our Sundays for all classes and sections of the people of England.

It is an association of the people,—men, women, and children,—who feel deeply on this great subject; and who are conscious of the loss and injury to their own lives and to their homes that will assuredly result if, little by little, the people’s rightful claim to their “Sunday rest” is taken away from them. They know its priceless value.

“Of all the days within the week, They dearly love but one day,— And that’s the day that comes between A Saturday and Monday.”

They know, too, how, in all directions, this grand bulwark of our liberties as a home-loving and God-fearing people is being undermined. Everywhere they are asking, “Who will help us? who will show us the way to get us back our Sundays?” . . . It is a question they have the right to ask; and the Imperial Sunday Alliance is ready and able to answer it.

It is formed in response to the people’s demand for a free Sunday,—a Sunday free from the selfish and cruel encroachments of needless and unjustifiable labor upon a day which, all through “our rough island story,” has been kept distinct from all other days; the day that is declared by English statute law to be at once both holiday and holy day, as being “the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday,” the true weekly rest day for a Christian people.

It is an alliance as wide and comprehensive as the nation itself; it is not a new society for dealing with the religious side only of this great institution. This task is left by the alliance to the churches themselves, and to the various societies already existing, and doing such admirable work for this special purpose. On this side of the Sunday question the alliance contents itself with affirming principles; it lays down no hard-and-fast rules as to any man’s use (or abuse) of his Sundays. But while confining its efforts mainly to a somewhat different purpose, the alliance is none the less founded on those great foundation facts which alone give meaning to “our English Sunday,” and which are held in common by all the churches. This will be seen from the names of those who, directly or indirectly, have taken part in the movement which has resulted in the Imperial Sunday Alliance.

It is led by a notable combination of representative men, drawn from all sides of the religious, parliamentary, municipal, literary, scientific, commercial, and industrial life of the nation; and has twice within two years (in January, 1907, and in February, 1909) given occasion to a unique official pronouncement, or “message to the nation,” signed by the heads of all three sections of our national religion,—the Archbishop of Canterbury, the (Roman Catholic) Archbishop of Westminster, and the Rev. J. Scott Lidgett, for our non-conformist fellow countrymen. The alliance has further received the cordial approval of labor leaders and other representatives of industry and trade, including one hundred and fourteen associations of shopkeepers, trade and labor councils, federations of railway, municipal, postal, and other public servants, employees in factories, policemen, officers and seamen of the merchant service, deep-sea fishermen, clerks, journalists, omnibus, tram-car, and taxicab drivers, barmaids, hospital nurses, and many more representative workmen (and working women) of the country.

This organization proposes to bring all the forces of religion, state, and industrialism to bear upon the question of an enforced day of rest. English Catholic, Roman Catholic, non-conformists, and the labor unions are clasping hands in England to force upon all the people this ordinance of the church.

The struggle for religious liberty is not a North American struggle; it is a struggle that will continue until the controversy with sin is closed. It will be waged in every country, among every people. It will be coextensive with the third angel’s message. Wherever “this gospel of the kingdom” is preached for a witness to the nations, there will be brought to bear upon those who accept the message the same test that was brought to bear upon Daniel and the Hebrew worthies, upon the faithful children of God during the dark ages, and upon conscientious Christians during colonial days in America. They will have to decide whether they will yield to compulsion and go through a form of worship at the command of men, or whether they will obey God and worship him according to the dictates of their own consciences.

The question of soul liberty is not a local issue, except in the sense that, being universal, it will be local everywhere. In every nation forces are at work and conditions are developing that will try the souls of men upon this point of man’s right to freedom in his worship of the Almighty. Upon that point the culmination of the conflict will come; and at that time, and by man’s attitude toward that test, there will be made very plain the distinction between “him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.”

C. M. S.