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Missionaries' Chinese press originally aimed at spreading Christianity with China's first modern magazine Chinese Monthly Magazine as an epitome of its kind. However, in the 1840s,a new magazine Eastern and Western Ocean's Monthly Investigation was published and shifted the emphasis away from Christian preaching to Western culture introduction, which marked the shift of the aim of the religious press from the spread of religion to that of Western culture. The 1860s and 1870s witnessed the coexistence of both nonreligious and religious magazines, while the beginning of the 20th century saw missionaries' Chinese press returned to the starting point, i. e. "regarding and expounding Christianity as its fundamental task". In short, missionaries' Chinese press experienced an evolution in positioning its aims--from the spread of Christianity to that of Western culture and then backs to the starting point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]