So the highest of insular Church dignitaries got his hat and hastened away while the “renegade and impious impostor” remained⁠—in serene unconsciousness of the disturbance he had created? Perhaps not. At least he was serene.

But our relations with Monsignor Guidi continued most agreeable during our entire stay in the Islands. Mr. Taft thought very highly of him as a man and an ecclesiastical statesman and diplomat and greatly regretted his death which occurred after we left the Islands. Through him, the question of the Friars’ lands was settled as Pope Leo had told Mr. Taft it would be, satisfactorily to the United States. To bring that story, which was distractingly long drawn out in reality, to a close, I will merely add that the government succeeded in purchasing the Friars’ lands for the sum of $7,000,000; they were turned into a public domain to be sold under most encouraging conditions, to their tenants and others who wished to acquire homesteads. The Friars were not sent back to the parishes and many left the Islands.