With Columcille at Aran was also the mild-eyed Ciaran, 'the Carpenter's son,' and the best beloved of all the disciples of Enda. And when Ciaran, too, was called away by God to found his own great monastery in the green meadows by the Shannon's side, we are told that Enda and his monks came with him down to the sea shore, whilst their eyes were moist and their hearts were sorrow-laden. Then the young and gentle Ciaran, whose own career was destined to be so bright and so brief, knelt down on the white sand and begged his holy father's blessing, while the tears streamed down his cheeks. It was too much for the holy old man to bear; in the pathetic language of the Scripture he lifted up his voice and wept aloud--"Oh! my brethren," he said, "why should I not weep? this day our island has lost its choicest flower and the strength of religious observance." So Ciaran got his Abbot's blessing, and entering his currach, sailed away for the mainland; but he often turned his streaming eyes to look back on Aran, the home of his heart, and on the little cells where his brethren dwelt, and the oratory of his beloved father, Enda, and the billowy cliffs of the holy island now fast fading from his view. There is hardly a single one of the great saints of the Second Order who did not spend some time in Aran. It was, as we have said, the novitiate of their religious life. St. Jarlath of Tuam, nearly as old as Enda himself, St. Carthach the Elder of Lismore, the two St. Kevins of Glendalough--two brothers, St. Mac Creiche of Corcomroe, St. Lonan Kerr, St. Nechan, St. Guigneus, St. Papeus, St. Libeus, brother of St. Enda himself, all were there. There is no other part of Ireland so interesting as these Aran Islands, not only from their past history, but from the great number of Christian remains that are still to be found on their shores. No where else do we find so many and so various specimens of early Christian architecture--churches, cloghauns, duirteachs, crosses, and cashels. To these monuments, however interesting in themselves, we can make but very brief reference.