Blow              Blew                Blown
Grow              Grew                Grown
Begin             Began               Begun
See               Saw                 Seen
Write             Wrote               Written
Give              Gave                Given
Speak             Spoke               Spoken
Rise              Rose                Risen
Fall              Fell                Fallen, etc.

There are a few which are made up of different radicals, which have been wedded together by habit, to avoid the frequent and unpleasant recurrence of the same word; as,

Am                Was                 Been
Go (wend)         Went                Gone, etc.

Some which were formerly irregular, are now generally used with the regular termination, in either the past tense or participle, or both; as,

Hang              Hung or hanged      Hung or hanged
Dare              Dared or durst      Dared
Clothe            Clad or clothed     Clad or clothed
Work              Worked or wrought   Worked
Shine             Shined or shone     Shone or shined
Spill             Spilled or spilt    Spilt or spilled, etc.

The syllable ed is a contraction of the past tense of do; as, I loved, love did, did love, or love-ed.  He learn_ed_, learn did, did learn, or learned.  It signifies action, did, done, or accomplished.  You have all lived long enough to have noticed the change in the pronounciation of this syllable.  Old people sound it full and distinct; and so do most others in reading the scriptures; but not so generally as in former times.  In poetry it was usually abbreviated so as to avoid the full sound; and hence we may account for the irregular termination of many words, such as heard, for heared; past, for passed; learnt, for learned; built, for builded.  In modern poetry, however, the e is retained, tho sounded no more than formerly.

Ing is derived from the verb to be, and signifies being, existing; and, attached to a verb, is used as a noun, or adjective, retaining so much of its former character as to have an object after it which is affected by it; as, “I am writing a lecture.”  Here writing, the present participle of write, describes myself in my present employment, and yet retains its action as a verb, and terminates on lecture as the thing written.  “The man was taken in the act of stealing some money.”  In this case stealing names the action which the man was performing when detected, which action thus named, has money for the object on which it terminates.

I barely allude to this subject in this place to give you an idea of the method we adopt to explain the meaning and use of participles.  It deserves more attention, perhaps, to make it plain to your minds; but as it is not an essential feature in the new system, I shall leave it for consideration in a future work.  Whoever is acquainted with the formation of the present participle in other languages, can carry out the suggestions I have made, and fully comprehend my meaning.