than useless, to teach for grammar any thing that is not true; and no doctrine can be true of which one part palpably oversets an other.  What has been taught on the present topic, has led me into a multitude of critical remarks, designed both for the refutation of the principles which I reject, and for the elucidation and defence of those which are presently to be summed up in notes, or special rules, for the correction of false syntax.  If my decisions do not agree with the teaching of our common grammarians, it is chiefly because these authors contradict themselves.  Of this sort of teaching I shall here offer but one example more, and then bring these strictures to a close:  “When present participles are preceded by an article, or pronoun adjective, they become nouns, and must not be followed by objective pronouns, or nouns without a preposition; as, the reading of many books wastes the health.  But such nouns, like all others, may be used without an article, being sufficiently discovered by the following preposition; as, he was sent to prepare the way, by preaching of repentance.  Also an article, or pronoun adjective, may precede a clause, used as a noun, and commencing with a participle; as, his teaching children was necessary.”—­Dr. Wilson’s Syllabus of English Gram., p. xxx.  Here the last position of the learned doctor, if it be true, completely annuls the first; or, if the first be true, the last must needs be false, And, according to Lowth, L. Murray, and many others, the second is as bad as either.  The bishop says, concerning this very example, that by the use of the preposition of after the participle preaching, “the phrase is rendered obscure and ambiguous:  for the obvious meaning of it, in its present form, is, ’by preaching concerning repentance, or on that subject;’ whereas the sense intended is, ’by publishing the covenant of repentance, and declaring repentance to be a condition of acceptance with God.’”—­Lowth’s Gram., p. 82.  “It ought to be, ‘by the preaching of repentance;’ or, by preaching repentance.”—­Murray’s Gram., p. 193.

NOTES TO RULE XX.

NOTE I.—­Active participles have the same government as the verbs from which they are derived; the preposition of, therefore, should never be used after the participle, when the verb does not require it.  Thus, in phrases like the following, of is improper:  “Keeping of one day in seven;”—­“By preaching of repentance;”—­“They left beating of Paul.”

NOTE II.—­When a transitive participle is converted into a noun, of must be inserted to govern the object following; as, “So that there was no withstanding of him.”—­Walker’s Particles. p. 252.  “The cause of their salvation doth not so much arise from their embracing of mercy, as from God’s exercising of it”—­Penington’s Works, Vol. ii, p. 91.  “Faith is the receiving of Christ with the whole soul.”—­Baxter.  “In thy pouring-out of thy fury upon Jerusalem.”—­Ezekiel, ix, 8.