ET. 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 came 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- 
tie 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, 
