Pius Ix

[From Uie New York Timfia.] Wounded in his affections, disappointed in nis day-dreams of martial fame, the young Count Feretti hastened from a place that had grown hateful to him. Every sight of the blue Adriatic, of the white walk of the old fort, of the blackish-green ibexes around the villa Albani re-opened bis sore. Ho went to Bome and threw himself into the very vortex of the dissipated life of thoso times. The dreadful throes which society had undergone, the instability of fortune in days when no one knew what would happen on the morrow, the spectacle of the downfall of established fortunes on the one hand, and the rise of colossal wealth from nothing on the other, had worked a complete demoralization which at flrst the return of the Pope was powerless to cure. The honor of men, the j ciiastity of women were subordínate to j the pursuit after pïeasure and the thirst of success. Men gambled like denizens of the mad-house, women lived without restraint. The feil philosophy of the Egyptiana, "Eat, drink, and live," was in every heart and on every lip. "Who cares for to-morrow?" was as much the thought of the Bomans then as when Horace wrote : ' ' Quid sit futururn eras, fuge queerere." It was a carniva) without end of foily and of shame. Among the boldest libertines of thafc bold time, among the wililest gamblers, among the most successful seekers after bonnes fortunes was Mastai Feretti. His rare personal beauty, his wonderful cliarm of conversation, his sparkling wit, his never-failing vivacity, made him eagerly sought after, He was, perhaps, at tli at time the Grammont of the hour. Men delighted to teil of the equanimity with which he supported the fortunes of the gaming-table, how he would commence an anecdote while hazarding thousands of scudi, and would finish without a tremor in his voice when fortune was adverse to him. Women whispered of his success in other fields, and gossiped of the furious riyalries between certain belle donne for his smile. Suddenly, in the midst of his social triumphs, in the height of his sad victories in the boudoir and the gambling-room, Mas ai Feretti disappeared. Among those unthinking votaries of pïeasure who lived in such a whirl of exoitement as to exclude tioth thought and real affection, there were none who cared sufficiently for the companion of their follies to ask what had become of him. He, the biïlliant, the life-enjoying, from whose lips had flowed with careless grace the spicurean philosophy of the time, laystretched in agony, Godsmitten, bef ore the humble altar of an obscure church in Kome. For as surely as in the early days of Christianity, when he thought not of it, so did God sene? conviction to the heart of this young libertino, in the midst of his excesses. The mysteries of a heart experience, of tliat second birth - that baptism of water and the spirit which the Savior of mankind has explained as necessary to eternal life - is not a subject f or a newspaper article. It is essentially of the spirit, and those who tliink of its awful secrets must do so with solemn preparation, and with mind divested of earthly cares, iut the existence of such things, thougli nly few can know, all are compelled to jelieve. Even those who do not accept evelation are forced to see in the lives f Ignatius Loyola and Mastai Feretti nd John Bunyan a transmitting energy which turned base clay to purest gold. Mastai Feretti, under the influence of that mysterious power, lay stretched in submissive agony bef ore his God. When he rose up comforted the current of his life was changed. All his wasted energies, all his broken ambitions, all his lost affections carne back with tenfold ecergy, when divinely directed into a just and noble channel. He saw his work before Mm. Tha persuasiye tongue, whose golden accents had whispered of guilty love to women, the eloquence that had delighted men, were capable to do God service. He was an instrument to stay the demoralization of the age, to paint vice in its own image, strip from its f alse face its alluring mask, show the hollowness of its promises, and the gulf to which it unerringly led.