Are there no Moravians in the Moon, that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, to civilize civilization and christianize Christendom?

Melville’s quip turns the rhetoric of missionary “civilizing” back on the so‑called civilized world. By imagining Moravian missionaries on the Moon who might come to “civilize civilization and christianize Christendom,” he satirizes Western complacency and the moral contradictions of Christian nations—especially their violence, exploitation, and hypocrisy—while they presume to reform others. The phrase “poor pagan planet of ours” collapses the usual hierarchy (Christian/civilized vs. pagan/uncivilized), suggesting that the real paganism may lie at the center of empire. The joke’s bite depends on inversion: the missionary project becomes an indictment of Christendom’s failure to live up to its own professed ideals.