OBS. 28.—­The observations which have been made on this point, under the rule for the possessive case, while they show, to some extent, the inconsistencies in doctrine, and the improprieties of practice, into which the difficulties of the mixed participle have betrayed some of our principal grammarians, bring likewise the weight of much authority and reason against the custom of blending without distinction the characteristics of nouns and participles in the same word or words; but still they may not be thought sufficient to prove this custom to be altogether wrong; nor do they pretend to have fully established the dogma, that such a construction is in no instance admissible.  They show, however, that possessives before participles are seldom to be approved; and perhaps, in the present instance, the meaning might be quite as well expressed by a common substantive, or the regular participial noun:  as, “Some of these irregularities arise from our reception of the words—­or our receiving of the words—­through a French medium.”  But there are some examples which it is not easy to amend, either in this way, or in any other; as, “The miscarriages of youth have very much proceeded from their being imprudently indulged, or left to themselves.”—­Friends’ N. E. Discipline, p. 13.  And there are instances too, of a similar character, in which the possessive case cannot be used.  For example:  “Nobody will doubt of this being a sufficient proof.”—­Campbell’s Rhet., p. 66.  “But instead of this being the fact of the case, &c.”—­Butlers Analogy, p. 137.  “There is express historical or traditional evidence, as ancient as history, of the system of religion being taught mankind by revelation.”—­Ibid. “From things in it appearing to men foolishness.”—­Ib., p. 175.  “As to the consistency of the members of our society joining themselves to those called free-masons.”—­N.  E. Discip., p. 51.  “In either of these cases happening, the person charging is at liberty to bring the matter before the church, who are the only judges now remaining.”—­Ib., p. 36; Extracts, p. 57.  “Deriving its efficacy from the power of God fulfilling his purpose.”—­Religious World, Vol. ii, p. 235.  “We have no idea of any certain portion of time intervening between the time of the action and the time of speaking of it.”—­Priestley’s Gram., p. 33:  Murray’s, i, 70; Emmons’s, 41; and others.  The following example therefore, however the participle may seem to be the leading word in sense, is unquestionably wrong; and that in more respects than one:  “The reason and time of the Son of God’s becoming man.”—­Brown’s Divinity, p. xxii.  Many writers would here be satisfied with merely omitting the possessive sign; as does Churchill, in the following example:  “The chief cause of this appears to me to lie