IN our issue of April 26, we published an account of the arrest of Brother E. K. Cassell, at Raton, N. M., on a charge of violating the Sunday law. We present here a letter from Brother H. M. J. Richards, of Loveland, Colo., together with some photographic illustrations, regarding Brother Cassell's incarceration, which will certainly be of interest, as well as instruction, to our readers:
Numbered with criminals for obeying God's Sabbath law in preference to man's.
LOVELAND, COLO., April 21, 1905.
EDITOR SIGNS OF THE TIMES: I enclose some photos showing Brother E. K. Cassell in the county jail of Colfax County, N. M., for laboring on the first day of the week, after having faithfully observed the seventh day; also a photo of the court-house and prison, with its connecting passage-way overhead. The prison proper, a dark, forbidding room, with stone floor, and iron-barred windows, and steel-barred cages, is the back portion of the square building to the left. The front part of the square building is where the jailer lives. The jailer is also sheriff.
The picture of Brother Cassell behind the bars is taken at the door of the prison. This is how I saw him when I reached there, after his incarceration. I talked with him there for some time, until the jailer returned from town, when he opened the door and let Brother Cassell come out into his parlor and talk with me.
There are just ten bars to the opening in the door, altho they do not all show in the photo. How much better to be kept behind ten iron bars for keeping the law of God, than to be kept in ward in the prison-house of sin and condemnation by the ten "words" of God! This man, altho behind iron bars, was the Lord's free man, and was rejoicing in the privilege of being counted worthy to "suffer for His name."
The citizens asked me what ought to be done. I said, "Brother Cassell can not pay the costs, for that would acknowledge the principle and invite further persecution. For the same reason we (the church) can not do it. But if you, as citizens, who are not Seventh-day Adventists, pay it, that will repudiate the thing." Within a few hours the money was raised, and his release secured. His time, aside from the twenty-eight days for costs, was about expired, so the sheriff kindly let him out a little over one day before the actual fifteen days had elapsed.
It was my privilege to stay two nights on the floor in the court-room with Brother Cassell, and the next day, the day of his release Thursday the 13th inst., to accompany him from the prison to his home, there to rejoice with him and his wife over the providential deliverance wrought before our eyes.
The city authorities, including the mayor, said Brother Cassell's imprisonment was unjust. We expect no more trouble until the next District Court meets in September. Pray for the victory of the truth and liberty of worship in New Mexico.
