The second of the two Acts establishing the Ecclesiastical Commission is of Victorian date. The operations of this body have increased the incomes of Church livings by £1,016,775 a year, or by a capital sum of £30,599,100; and this during the twelve years ending 1896-97. Queen Anne's bounty does not, indeed, seem to have been uniformly administered with such wisdom. Its funds have sometimes been granted to incumbents to enlarge houses, schools, and other buildings beyond the point at which there was an assured income for the maintenance of these fabrics. The Tithes Commutation Act is not blamed for the periodical return of hard times for the clergy. The distress itself is partial, sometimes exaggerated. Still, there seems to have been a general reduction of incomes in rural districts by 25 per cent. No offertories, which in towns greatly help the clergy, can make the country deficiency good. The suggestion of repealing the Act which put down pluralities so as to concentrate several poor preferments in one incumbent is not likely to be acted on. But some relaxation of the Act might be a feasible concession to a growing opinion. Rich livings are sometimes the worst served. Some re-adjustment of stipends after a new enquiry seems, therefore, likely to be proposed. So much for the purely English aspect of clerical activity in our age. The alliance in the foreign enterprise of the Church with the State coincides exclusively with the Victorian reign. In 1841 the Colonial Bishopric fund was begun. By 1851 the Colonial episcopate was fairly organized. Four years after the Queen's accession there were 10 Anglican dioceses out of England. Sixty years after that accession there are 92.[108] These sees are grouped into provincial Synods. This foreign Church, one in doctrine with the Established Church at home, is modified in its agency and development to suit the soil to which it is transplanted. The late Sir J. R. Seeley, with respect to its calming influences amid jarring faiths, has in a familiar passage dwelt on the Christianity of the English Church as a reconciling element between the rival creeds of the Eastern world. Add to this the organization of episcopal Protestantism of the Anglican type, not only in the West Indies and in our Canadian Dominion, but in the United States themselves.[109]