Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, June 1922 · page 40 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #34 — page 40: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang* (a humor magazine) reprints a poem that reconciles evolution with religious faith. The poem, quoted by ministers at Westminster Abbey and Yale, presents natural phenomena and human experiences—evolution, autumn, longing, sacrifice—as equally valid expressions of either scientific or divine truth. The refrain "Some call it [X], and others call it God" bridges the era's heated science-versus-religion debate. The satire appears gentle: the magazine presents this serious poem straightforwardly, then undercuts it with a crude "Health Hint" suggesting hedonism ("eat and drink") over marriage and responsibility—likely mocking both the poem's earnestness and contemporary anxiety about mortality and social obligation. The overall tone is irreverent toward established institutions (churches, universities) while presenting conflicting worldviews without resolving them.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
38 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang ail parts of the world, some protesting, others lauding. With all its radicalism, the poem seems to have found special favor with ma- ministers of the Gospel. It was quoted entire in a sermon in Westminster Abbey; also at Yale by Dr. Rains- ford of New York when addressing the undergraduates. A fire mist and a planet, A crystal and a cell, A jellyfish and a saurian, And a cave where the cave-men dwell; Then a sense of law and beauty, A face turned from the clod— Some call it Evolution And others call it God. A haze on the fair horizon, The infinite, tender sky, The ripe, rich tint of the corn-field, And the wild geese sailing high, And all over upland and lowland The sign of the goldenrod— Some of us call it Autumn And others call it God. Like tides on a crescent sea-beach, When the moon is new and thin, Unto our hearts high yearnings Come welling and surging in— Come from the mystic ocean, Whose rim no foot has trod— Some of us call it Longing And others call it God. A picket frozen on duty, A mother starved for her brood, Socrates drinking the hemlock, And Jesus on the rood; And millions who, humble and nameles, The straight, hard pathway trod— Some call it Consecration And others call it God. * * * Our Health Hint “Eat and drink, but do not marry for to- morrow you may die.”