In marked contrast to the pagan temples, where the resources of art were lavished on the exterior, the outside of St. Sophia is remarkably plain and unornamented. To some extent this is due to the removal of all the statues by the Turks; but even when they were in their places it must have been merely a huge rectangular mass. The length of the building is two hundred and forty-one feet, the breadth two hundred and twenty-six feet, the diameter of the dome one hundred feet, the height to the centre of it one hundred and seventy-nine feet. East and west of the great dome spring two large semi-domes, the eastern supported by three smaller semi-domes, of which the centre one covers the bema; the western by two smaller semi-domes. The effect of this arrangement is that the spectator sees at once the lofty dome in the centre, whereas in modern buildings of like design the full view of the dome is not obtained till we are nearly under it. St. Sophia thus seems great at first sight--St. Peter's only after reflection. Around the dome are twenty-four windows; at the four angles are four colossal seraphim; in the centre the face of Christ, the sovereign Judge, looked down in mosaic. The porch or narthex is double, one hundred feet in depth. In the outer one stood the phiale, with the inscription that reads the same backward and forward: ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ--"Wash thine iniquities, not the face alone." Five marble portals, with bronze gates wrought in floriated crosses, admit to the inner narthex, whence nine doors of bronze, exquisite in workmanship, admit to the church. Over the centre doorway is a group in mosaic, where Justinian is represented kneeling with a nimbus round his head. Over this second narthex and the side aisles is the _gynœconitis_ or women's gallery, adorned with sixty-seven pillars, so that the whole number of columns in the church is the prime number one hundred and seven. In the interior was the nave for the laity, divided from the _soleas_, or the part for the clergy, by the _ambo_, a stately and elaborate structure with a canopy of gold and a cross of pure gold weighing one hundred pounds. The ambo was at once pulpit and reading-desk. The soleas supplied accommodation for three hundred and eighty-five ministers of various ranks, including sixty priests, one hundred deacons and thirty deaconesses. On the left of the soleas was the seat of the emperor--on the right, the throne of the patriarch. From the soleas projected the apse of the _bema_, or sanctuary, flanked by the _diaconicon_, or vestry, and the _prothesis_, where the elements were prepared for the Eucharist. The bema was divided from the soleas by the _iconostasis_, or screen, made of silver, and exhibiting in oval medallions the _icons_ or pictures of Our Lord, His Virgin Mother, the prophets and apostles. In the iconostasis were the three holy doors--above the middle one a massive cross of gold. Behind