In 1868, because of his love for Taoist thought, the missionary John Chalmers published the first direct Chinese-to-English translation of the Tao Te Ching. This translation focused on the transmission of Lao Tzu’s philosophical thoughts and showed distinct academic qualities in many aspects, including the translation motivation and the selection of the source text, the study of the nature of the source language, and the translation strategies, methods and effects. Then, Chalmers delved deeper into Chinese culture and made fruitful achievements in the research of Chinese character structure, dictionary compilation, Chinese history and Taoist culture, and eventually grew into a Sinologist, realizing the transformation of his identity from missionary to sinologist.