^x. 32.] JOURNAL. 309 



In one of his later mountain journeys Dr. Gray 

 passed again through Val Crucis in June, 1879 ; and 

 the following extract from Mrs. Gray's journal gives 

 the sad fate of the little mission colony. 



" In the afternoon we canie upon Val Crucis. . . . 

 It seems, years ago (in 1841) when Dr. Gray, Mr. 

 John Carey, and others came exploring in the moun- 

 tains, Mr. Carey was laid up for a while in a farm- 

 house, and talking with the good people found them 

 woefully ignorant, especially of everything relating to 

 Christianity. So when he went back to New York 

 he corresponded with the Southern bishop, who be- 

 stirred himself, and a mission was sent into the moun- 

 tains. They settled at Val Crucis, and so named it. 

 It was in the early days of Ritualism, and the young 

 men thought to found something like the early monas- 

 tic settlements in England, and, as it seemed to the 

 ignorant people, played strange pranks and preached 

 wonderful and incomprehensible doctrines which puz- 

 zled and bewildered them ; then Bishop Ives went 

 over to the Catholic Church, and it all died out ; and 

 here is the church (the rude timber church), with 

 still a few members, but all the farms and settlements 

 passed into other hands as far as I could make 

 out into the hands of a rich old man, who lives any- 

 thing but a holy life, and whose boarding-house for 

 the saw-mill hands in Val Crucis is an awful degrada- 

 tion ! I saw at the Duggers a large old Bible, and 

 on it printed ' Society of the Holy Cross, Val Crucis,' 

 which the children were using to paste stories and 

 pictures in ! '' 



The journal continues : 



Monday and Tuesday. - - Crossed the Blue Ridge, 



