Echo

"During the Civil War, at an abolition meeting at Faneuil Hall in Boston, a tall and striking female ex-slave, Sojourner Truth, shared the platform with Frederick Douglass and Wendell Phillips. Douglas, carried away by his recital of the wrongs done to the slaves ended by saying that they had no hope of justice from the whites, no possible hope except in their right arms. It must come to blood; they must fight for themselves, and redeem themselves, or it would never be done. When he finished, a hush fell over the house and Sojourner's voice sounded out, "Frederick," she paused. "Is God dead?"1.

Mourners walked along and stopped briefly before the casket. It was August 26, 1900, and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche lay in the coffin as he had passed away the day before.

As the funeral attendees viewed the corpse a voice echoed back from somewhere in the Universe, startling the mourners, "Friedrich," it paused. "Is God dead?"

1. Smith, Page, The Nation Comes of Age, N.Y., McGraw-Hill Co., 1981. P. 661