Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/84

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68
MEXICO UNDER CARRANZA

own use. Every one of these properties has been confiscated by the terms of the constitution and now belong to the nation. Furthermore, no foreign congregation can gather in a place of worship built with its own money to enjoy the ministration of a preacher of its own race. In all the world no government recognized as even semi-civilized imposes upon religion such burdens as those under which it now rests in that portion of Mexico subject to the new constitution which has resulted as the perfect fruit of the Carranza movement.

In view of the kind of government which the Carranza party has conducted, one can well understand the motive of its representatives for including in their new constitution an inhibition against a minister of the gospel criticizing the laws of the country, the authorities in control, or the manner in which they exercise their power. It would appear, however, that the provision divesting every minister of the gospel of his franchise as a citizen was a gratuitous expression of the hatred of the constitution-makers for all religion.

The action of the Carranza government in inflicting the new constitution upon Mexico, thereby violating all its pledges to this country and to the civilized world, is so thoroughly characteristic and illustrative of the moral degradation of the element now governing the larger part of Mexico as to