[...]It was while I was pastor of the Wooster Methodist Episcopal Church that the colored orator, Frederick Douglass, lectured upon San Domingo. For an evening he was my guest, and of the many incidents which he told me of his history, I recall this thrilling one. He said: "Mr. Pepper, you lecture upon Ireland. I have read the

lecture entitled, 'Ireland—Liberty Springs from her Martyrs' Blood.' In it you speak of my reception in Cork and Dublin, and in Belfast; but here is something that has never been published. When I was a slave, sixteen years of age, I had never seen a ship, and I told my mistress that I would like to go to Baltimore and see one. She gave me permission, and I walked the sixteen miles, and went down to the harbor, where I saw the object that had always excited my curiosity. Two Irishmen were unloading heavy timbers, and I helped them. When I was leaving, one of them said to me, 'Are you a slave, sir?' 'Yes,' I replied. The other whispered to me, 'Why do you not run away? God never made man to be a slave.' Every step I walked that night I could hear the words: 'Why do you not run away? God never made a man to be a slave.' I dreamed them during the night. You know the result. I did run away; and when I get to heaven I will search for those two Irishmen, take them by my Savior, and say, 'Here are the men who first told me that God never made a man to be a slave.'"