what the Reflection of our Ingratitude to the Eternal Goodness, while in Life, creates in us, which the Eternal lessens in proportion to our Repentance, which is here very sincere.  This will cease your Wonder at hearing the Sublunary Languages.

  “We have here no Passions to gratify, no Wants to supply, the Roots
  of Vice, which under no Denomination is known among us; consequently
  no Laws, nor Governours to execute them, are here necessary.

“Had the Cacklogallinian Prince known thus much, he would have been sensible how vain were his Expectations of getting from us the Gold he thirsts after:  For were we to meet with the purest Veins of that Metal, by removing only one Turf, not a Selenite would think it worth his while.

“This is a Place of Peace and Tranquillity, and this World is exactly adapted to the Temper of its Inhabitants:  Nature here is in an Eternal Calm; we enjoy an everlasting Spring; the Soil yields nothing noxious, and we can never want the Necessaries of Life, since every Herb affords a salubrious Repast to the Selenites.

  “We pass our Days without Labour, without other Anxiety, than what I
  mention’d, and the longing Desire we have for our Dissolution, makes
  every coming Day encrease our Happiness.

“We have not here, as in your World, Distinction of Sexes; for know, all Souls are masculine (if I may be allow’d that Term, after what I’ve said) however distinguish’d in the Body; and tho’ of late Years the Number of those which change your World for this (especially of the European Quarter) is very small; yet we do not apprehend our World will be left unpeopled.”

“You say, replied I, that none but the virtuous Soul reaches these blissfull Seats; what then becomes of the Vicious? and how comes it, that the Soul, when loosed by Sleep, I suppose without Distinction, retires hither?”

  “The Decrees, said he, of the Almighty are inscrutable, and you
  ask me Questions are not in my Power to resolve you.”

  “Have not, said I, the Cacklogallinians Souls, think you, since
  they’re endued with Reason?” “If they have, said he, they never
  are sent hither.”

I repeated this Discourse to the Cacklogallinians, which made Volatilio extreamly melancholly.

Happy Men! said he, to whose Species the divine Goodness has been so indulgent!  Miserable Cacklogallinians! if destin’d, after bearing the Ills of Life, to Annihilation.  Let us, Probusomo, never think of returning, but beg we may be allow’d to end our Days with these Favourites of Heaven.

I interpreted this to the Selenite, who shook his Head, and said it was, he believ’d, impossible.  That he did not doubt but Providence would reward the Virtuous of his Species; that his Mercy and Justice were without Bound, which ought to keep him from desponding.