 During the progress of these events, which extended over a course of years, and with which Mr. M'Crie was so vitally connected, their whole bearing of the Original Seceders had a most momentous influence upon M'Crie's future literary labours.They threw his mind back upon the original principles of the Scottish Reformation, and made them the chief subjects of his inquiry; they brought him into close contact with those illustrious characters by whom the Reformation was commenced; and they animated and strengthened that love of religious consistency, and hostility to ecclesiastical tyranny and oppression, that accorded so materially with his original character.In the following sentence from one of his letters in 1802 can be glimpsed the man who set at nought the demolition of such things as cathedrals and monasteries when they hindered the erection of a true church, and who was well fitted to become the biographer of him whose stern principle was, "Pull down the nests and the rooks will flee."