OBS. 3.—­The participle in ing represents the action or state as continuing and ever incomplete; it is therefore rightly termed the IMPERFECT participle:  whereas the participle in ed always, or at least usually, has reference to the action as done and complete; and is, by proper contradistinction, called the PERFECT participle.  It is hardly necessary to add, that the terms perfect and imperfect, as thus applied to the English participles, have no reference to time, or to those tenses of the verb which are usually (but not very accurately) named by these epithets.  The terms present and past, which some still prefer to imperfect and perfect, do denote time, and are in a kind of oblique contradistinction; but how well they apply to the participles, may be seen by the following texts:  “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.”—­“We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”—­ST. PAUL:  2 Cor., v, 19, 20.  Here reconciling refers to the death of Christ, and reconciled, to the desired conversion of the Corinthians; and if we call the former a present participle, and the latter a past, (as do Bullions, Burn, Clark, Felton, S. S. Greene, Lennie, Pinneo, and perhaps others,) we nominally reverse the order of time in respect to the events, and egregiously misapply both terms.

OBS. 4.—­Though the participle in ing has, by many, been called the Present participle, it is as applicable to past or future, as to present time; otherwise, such expressions as, “I had been writing,”—­“I shall be writing,” would be solecisms.  It has also been called, almost as frequently, the Active participle.  But it is not always active, even when derived from an active verb; for such expressions as, “The goods are selling,”—­“The ships are now building,” are in use, and not without good authority:  as, “And hope to allay, by rational discourse, the pains of his joints tearing asunder.”—­Locke’s Essay, p. 285.  “Insensible of the designs now forming by Philip.”—­Goldsmith’s Greece, ii, 48.  “The improved edition now publishing.”—­BP.  HALIFAX:  Pref. to Butler.  “The present tense expresses an action now doing.”—­Emmons’s Gram., p. 40.  The distinguishing characteristic of this participle is, that it denotes an unfinished and progressive state of the being, action, or passion; it is therefore properly denominated the IMPERFECT participle.  If the term were applied with reference to time, it would be no more objectionable than the word present, and would be equally supported by the usage of the Greek linguists.  I am no more inclined to “innovation,” than are the pedants who, for the choice here made, have ignorantly brought the false charge against me.