Happily this dismal period is passed away, and the constitutional gaiety of the Greeks now evinces its usual hilarity, and their music and dancing again enlivens the shores and villages of the Bosphorus. Their social dispositions, evinced in the structure of their houses, is strongly contrasted with those of the Turks. While the windows of the latter are shut up by impenetrable lattice-work, which is always kept jealously closed, and a human being is never seen in the solitary house, those of the former are distinguished by open casements, at which is generally observed some gay groups of laughing female faces, holding a cheerful and unrestrained communication with any passenger. Nor are the houses of their ecclesiastics prohibited from this social enjoyment. The Greek secular priests are allowed to marry: their religion does not inhibit gaiety, though it prescribes many fasts: they have often a numerous family, and the “priest’s house” has nothing of that ascetic and austere observance that marks the celibacy of the Latin church. [Illustration: T. Allom. W. G. Watkins. THE ACROPOLIS AT SARDIS. Palace of Crœsus, Church of Panayia, Theatre, Arpolis, the Pactolus, Mount Tmolus. ASIA MINOR.] Sardis, one of the seven churches of the Apocalypse, was anciently the capital of the rich kingdom of Lydia. Here was the court of the splendid Crœsus, the contemporary of Cyrus the Great, to which were invited men distinguished by worth and learning. Here it was that Æsop composed those apologues, which at this day form the rudiments of our education; and here Solon gave that instructive lesson to the monarch on his throne, that riches and prosperity are no protection against the instability of fortune−-a truth which the unhappy prince had soon reason bitterly to remember. This city, like others, underwent many vicissitudes. It fell into the hands of Cyrus and the Persians, five hundred and fifty years before the Christian era. It was burnt by the Athenians half a century afterwards; was the occasion of drawing down the resentment of the “Great King” led the Persians to invade Europe; and was the cause of all the celebrated events that followed. It was totally destroyed by an earthquake in the reign of Tiberius, and about the time of the crucifixion of our Lord. Immediately after, the renovated city became distinguished among the seven Christian lights of the world. Sardis was one of those which the prophet, in the Apocalypse, reproves for declension from the Christian faith, and who thus exhorts them: “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God:” They despised the admonition; and when Julian attempted to restore paganism, he re-erected in this town all the pagan altars that had been prostrated; and when the Mohammedans invaded Asia Minor, Sardis, like the rest, fell into the power of the inveterate enemies of Christianity.