1883. CONCERNING THE PUNISHMENT OF CERTAIN ONES WHO ARE PLUNGED, AS IT WERE, INTO DEEP CLOUDS. I beheld the punishment of one who said he was tempted as to whether he could, by means of evils, obtain power for himself so that by evil doing he might strike a terror into others, and thus rule, as such is the opinion of many, to wit, that it is the best way to rule among fellows and over subjects by fear, and not by love. Inasmuch as this one was of such a quality, he began to perpetrate evil, which was represented by an axe wherewith he would strike a beam, but his intention was to strike men, the beam being substitute. While engaged in this atrocity he was suddenly let down into a cloud, as a kind of cloudy sea without a bottom. Such, it was said, was the punishment of this kind of offenders when possessed of but a feeble degree of life. - 1748, April 9.