here a possible thought, it surely could not be intimated
by any _such_ participle. In Acts, i, 3 and 4, it is stated, that our
Saviour showed himself to the apostles, "alive after his passion, by many
infallible proofs, _being seen_ of them forty days, and _speaking_ of the
things _pertaining_ to the kingdom of God; and, _being assembled_ together
with them commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem." Now,
of these misnamed "_present_ participles," we have here one "_active_," one
"_passive_," and two others--(one in each form--) that are _neuter_; but
_no present time_, except what is in the indefinite date of "_pertaining_."
The events are past, and were so in the days of St. Luke. Yet each of the
participles denotes _continuance_: not, indeed, in or to the _present
time_, but _for a time_. "_Being seen_" means _continuing to be seen_; and,
in this instance, the period of the continuance was "forty days" of time
past. But, according to the above-cited "_principle of English Grammar_,"
so long and so widely inculcated by "the Rev. Peter Bullions, D. D.,
Professor of Languages," &c.,--a central principle of interpretation,
presumed by him to hold "_always_"--this participle must intimate "_the
present being of an act, not in progress, but completed_;"--that is, "_the
present being of" the apostles' act in formerly seeing the risen Saviour_!

OBS. 16.--This grammarian has lately taken a deal of needless pains to
sustain, by a studied division of verbs into two classes, similar to those
which are mentioned in OBS. 13th above, a part of the philosophy of J. W.
Wright, concerning our usual form of passives in the present tense. But, as
he now will have it, that the two voices sometimes tally as counterparts,
it is plain that he adheres but partially to his former erroneous
conception of a perfect or "past" participle, and the terms which hold it
"in any connexion." The awkward substitutes proposed by the Irish critic,
he does not indeed countenance; but argues against them still, and, in some
respects, very justly. The doctrine now common to these authors, on this
point, is the highly important one, that, in respect to half our verbs,
what we commonly take for the passive present, _is not such_--that, in "the
_second_ class, (perhaps the greater number,) the _present-passive_ implies
that _the act expressed by the active voice has ceased_. Thus, 'The house
is built.' * * * Strictly speaking, then," says the Doc