PANAMA AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
Panama has put itself in touch with the progressive nations of the earth by adopting a policy of religious freedom. By the concordat between Colombia and Pope Leo XIII., the state might even declare null and void the marriages of Protestants and other non-Roman Catholics. Panama has repudiated the intolerant policy of Colombia, and has adopted the following: "The profession of all religions, as also the exercise of all forms of worship, shall be free without other limitations than respect for Christian morality and public order." But this hardly reaches the mark. It would be very easy for Roman Catholic judges and executive officers so to construe the law that Protestant worship and Protestant preaching would be considered contrary to "Christian morality and public order." Something more emphatic than that is needed.