In these years Milne published a translation of the Sacred Edict of the Kangxi Emperor. His 1819 tract "The Two Friends" became the most widely used Chinese Christian tract until the early twentieth century. Milne was remarkably prolific for one who came to literary work so late in life, and twenty-one Chinese works are attributed to him. Several were of substantial length; one was the "Chinese Monthly Magazine" (察世俗每月統記傳 Chashisu Meiyue Tongjizhuan), the first Chinese language magazine in the modern sense of the word; that ran from 1815 to 1822 and totaled several hundred pages. In addition, he produced two substantial books and a Malacca periodical in English.