As a pastor for eleven years among the working people of New York City, Dr. Rauschenbusch learned to understand the heart throbs and yearnings of the masses, and dedicated his life through Christian service to easing the pressure upon the working classes and to increasing the forces that bear them up. He saw the solution of the social problem in a Christian socialism that would destroy the autocracy of wealth and establish a democratic form of industrial relationships. He believed in the social or public ownership of the natural resources of the earth. “It is preposterous to think that an individual or a corporation can have absolute ownership in a vein of coal or copper. A mining company owns the holes in the ground, for it made the holes; it does not own the coal; for it did not make the coal. The coal is the gift of God and belongs to the people.”[XXVI-31] Another difficulty is found in the fact that business methods and the principles of Christianity have always been at strife.[XXVI-32] Individuals are struggling to get the better of their fellows. This tendency has been institutionalized in the form of business enterprise. Private persons have been permitted “to put their thumbs where they can constrict the life blood of the nation at will.”[XXVI-33] Christianity, on the other hand, lauds the principle of unselfish service, and of ranking the individual as the greatest who gives most. Christianity is awakening to its gigantic task of stopping the nation on “its headlong ride on the road of covetousness.” It is in this connection that Professor Rauschenbusch has made famous the phrase, “Christianizing the social order.” This term means “bringing the social order into harmony with the ethical convictions which are identified with Christ.”[XXVI-35] Such a program involves attacking “the last intrenchment of autocracy,” namely, in business,--and Christianizing business. The struggle is already on. In many of the phases of the conflict, capitalism is swallowing up Christianity. The church becomes traditional, narrowly ecclesiastical, dogmatic, opposing science and democracy. Where capitalism is strongest, the churches as virile social forces are weakest.[XXVI-34]