[Sidenote: PEACE AND PROGRESS.] Congress closed the session on the 1st of April. The results of its three months' labors were quite important.[XXIII-48] Though acting with independence, the utmost harmony prevailed in its relations with the executive. At the opening of the next legislative session in January 1881, the president made known that peace had been undisturbed both at home and abroad, and there was no cause to apprehend any immediate change. As far as the government's scanty means permitted, works of public utility had been fostered.[XXIII-49] Public education made considerable progress. The finances were duly attended to, and a few reforms introduced.[XXIII-50] The president congratulated the nation on the fact that all had been accomplished with the ordinary revenues. The public credit stood higher than ever. The foreign debt had been cancelled, and the internal, which amounted to $1,600,000, reduced to one half this sum.[XXIII-51] Congress adjourned March 6th. Several important measures were introduced and discussed, but left for completion in the following year.[XXIII-52] [Sidenote: JESUIT DISTURBANCES.] The apprehensions felt by a large number of citizens of serious troubles from the presence of the jesuits were realized in May 1881. On the 6th there was an Indian insurrection in Matagalpa, accompanied with considerable bloodshed, and the jesuits were said to be the instigators.[XXIII-53] Twenty members of the order residing in that place were arrested and taken under guard to Granada. A still more alarming revolt took place in Leon. At the opening of the Instituto de Occidente, an educational establishment under the special protection of the national authorities, Professor J. Leonard, from Spain, made certain remarks, at which the jesuit fathers took umbrage.[XXIII-54] They, together with a certain Apolonio Orozco, accused Leonard and Calderon of being free-thinkers and assailants of religion. The forty or fifty fathers living in Leon took the matter in hand energetically, and in two days there was hardly a person in the place who had not been told that the religion of their fathers was imperilled by the propaganda of the free-thinkers of the instituto. Relying on the support of a fanatical rabble, they assumed a bold attitude, and demanded prompt action on the part of Bishop Ulloa y Larios. But the latter would not uphold them. This greatly exasperated them. Meantime the rabble became seditious. Parties of armed men intrenched themselves in the old Recoleccion convent, and laboring under the excitement produced by the speeches of their leaders and the free use of rum, they resisted the troops engaged in an effort to preserve order, eight or ten being killed, and many more wounded. The mob retreated to the Recoleccion, resolved to continue the fight, defying the local authorities, who, in fact, did not show much disposition to put them down, the prefect being a friend of the jesuits. The commander of the