Abstract: The relationship between the Protestant missionaries in China and Chinese language in the late Qing Dynasty is reflected both in the translation of the Bible and the "Eastward Spread of Western Culture". With the deepening and popularization of "Eastward Spread of Western Culture" and the opening up of the interior northern China, the missionaries' views on Chinese language and their translation practices experienced a profound and continuous internal differentiation, forming two opposite groups in terms of "classical Chinese vs. vernacular Chinese". The disagreement and the controversy between them ended up with the victory of the latter when the "union version" Bible in Mandarin was issued in 1919. To a certain extent, this controversy about local language also reflects the perplexity about the relationship between classical Chinese language/culture and modern Chinese/culture in missionaries.

Key words: high Wenli, easy Wenli, missionaries, classical Chinese, writing in classical Chinese