pays the forfeit of his imprudence.  The injured power rises triumphant over the aggressor, and the glory of God’s government, in the righteous and immediate execution of his laws, is clearly revealed.  So long as man obeys the laws which regulate health, observes temperance in all things, uses the things of this world as not abusing them, he is at rest, he is blessed, he is happy:  but no sooner has he violated heaven’s law than he becomes the slave, and the servant assumes the master.  But I am digressing.  I would gladly follow this subject further, but I shall go beyond my limits, and, it may be, your patience.

I would insist, however, on the facts to which your attention has been given, for it is impossible, as I have before contended, to use language correctly without a knowledge of the things and ideas it is employed to represent.

Grovelling, indeed, must be the mind which will not trace the sublime exhibitions of Divine power and skill in all the operations of nature; and false must be that theory which teaches the young mind to think and speak of neutrality as attached to things which do exist.  As low and debasing as the speculations of the schoolmen were, they gave to things which they conceived to be incapable of action, a principle which they called “vis inertiae,” or, power to lie still.  Shall our systems of instruction descend below them, throw an insurmountable barrier in the way of human improvement, and teach the false principles that actions can exist without an effect, or that there is a class of words which “express neither action or passion.”  Such a theory is at war with the first principles of philosophy, and denies that “like causes produce like effects.”

The ablest minds have never been able to explain the foundation of a “neuter verb,” or to find a single word, with a solitary exception, which does not, in certain conditions, express a positive action, and terminate on a definite object; and that exception we shall see refers to a verb which expresses the highest degree of conceivable action.  Still they have insisted on three and some on four kinds of verbs, one expressing action, another passion or suffering, and the third neutrality.  We propose to offer a brief review of these distinctions, which have so long perplexed, not only learners, but teachers themselves, and been the fruitful source of much dissention among grammarians.

It is to be hoped you will come up to this work with as great candor as you have heretofore manifested, and as fully resolved to take nothing for granted, because it has been said by good or great men, and to reject nothing because it appears new or singular.  Let truth be our object and reason our guide to direct us to it.  We can not fail of arriving at safe and correct conclusions.

Mr. Murray tells us that “verbs are of three kinds, active, passive, and neuter.  In a note he admits of “active transitive and intransitive verbs,” as a subdivision of his first kind.  Most of his “improvers” have adopted this distinction, and regard it as of essential importance.