Photo from IJdwin A. Grosvenor 



the; mausoleum of sultan sllim ii at Constantinople 



Beside the Sultan is his favorite wife, Nourban Sultana. Under the same roof lie his 



three daughters; also the five sons — Mohammed, Souleiman, Moustapha, Djeanghir, and 



Abdullah — all bowstrung in that same dreadful night by their brother, Mourad III, on his 



accession. Here, too, are the remains of twentj^-one daughters and of thirteen sons of their 

 brother and murderer. 



icism and the other of Eastern Ortho- 

 doxy — should both have been first erected 

 by the first Christian emperor. It is an- 

 other coincidence that neither was in- 

 tended by its founder to be the metro- 

 politan church of either the new or the 

 ancient Rome. That distinction in Con- 

 stantinople was intended for the Church 

 of Saint Irene, and in Rome for that of 

 Saint John Lateranus. 



Its foundations were laid in 326, on 

 the site of a pagan temple, in the presence 

 of Constantine himself, a few months 

 after his return from the Council of Nice. 



It was concentrated to the divine 

 Sophia, or Wisdom of the Logos, or 

 Word of God — that is, to Christ himself. 



When it was destroyed by fire in 532, 

 Justinian determined to restore it on a 

 scale of magnificence such as the world 



had never beheld. It should be expia- 

 tion in stone of his own mistakes and 

 sins as a sovereign. It should commem- 

 orate the overthrow of disorder and re- 

 bellion and the pacification of the capi- 

 tal and Empire. In it his own glory 

 should be embodied, and succeeding ages 

 should there behold the enduring monu- 

 ment of his reign. It should preserve as 

 Avell the memory of his Empress Theo- 

 dora, whose noble courage had saved his 

 imperiled throne, whose image was 

 stamped with his upon every coin, and 

 whose name was joined with his in every 

 decree. It should be worthy of them, its 

 founders and — as far as lay in seemingly 

 limitless human resources and in the 

 highest human skill — of the Saviour for 

 whose worship it was designed. 



469 



