The July 1944 issue of the Millennial Star carried the article “Farewell, Ravenslea” by Edith Russell. Keepa readers enjoyed that this year; Star readers – including a pair of readers editing the Improvement Era – were just as impressed:

“The last number of the Millennial Star indicates that Edith Russell has real promise. Shall we keep in touch with her?” wrote John A. Widtsoe. “I have already written her,” responded Richard L. Evans.

Within days of the ending of World War II in the spring of 1945, Hugh B. Brown, president of the British Mission, was also writing – to John A. Widtsoe, to Howard S. MacDonald (president of BYU), to anyone he thought might be able to help with a project he had in mind – scholarships for two brilliant young English Saints, to include their transportation to the United States, the payment of tuition, and opportunities for them to work and support themselves. Those he contacted discussed the matter among themselves. “The two young people are Alvin Gittins, who Brother Brown thinks borders almost on genius,” said Elder Widtsoe. “The other is Miss Edith Russell, whose very unusual capacity as a writer is already known to us.”

Edith Russell and Alvin Gittins reached Utah in time to start school in the fall of 1945. And very soon, short pieces by Edith began to appear in Church magazines published in Utah.

From the Improvement Era, September 1945 –

What Is Man?

By Edith Russell

I listened to them talking — the physicist, the surgeon, the physician, the laboratory technician, — and I, a mere woman, smiled.

Each spoke at length — I, not at all. Women, as a rule, are not prepared to be philosophers. They do not, as a sex, reason. Their convictions are the result of instinct, rather than cold, measured thought. They like or dislike according to their immediate reaction to the object under regard, whether it is animal, material, or institutional, and usually they are in no way influenced by the application of reason on the part of others.

All this they said, and much more, and the application of reason proceeded. The surgeon was dissecting man, his liver, his kidneys, soft, red organs yielding to his knife, — the heart — was it that ugly repulsive mass, which could know sorrow, joy, pain, sublime emotion? I wondered. Was that object of gray matter, subject to cellular transformation, capable of secreting memories?

What is man, they said? And each one knew — with reservations, and held up the proof of his knowing, — one a scalpel, one a stethoscope, another a microscope. They went on talking, but I had ceased to listen, and being a woman, I was permitted to dream.

I dreamed of my childhood — thousands of years ago, before the mind of man had met the challenge of earthly elements, when I walked and lived and loved, and felt the pangs of growth, and knew God. Did I not call him Father? Was I not of him?

With him I had seen beauty, sheer and undefiled. Sometimes, even now, something would pluck at my memory like a hand on the strings of an instrument and the pain of it would be exquisite, unbearable, and so elusive that my poor clod-hopping humanity would hesitate to give it tangible reality, and its echo would run like children’s laughter down the abyss of eternity.

With him I had known toil, and from him learned the dignity of labor. I had known the throes of creation and experienced the nameless joy of “doing,” for no idleness was there. And now, sometimes, when the sweat runs down into my eager eyes, a voice within me says, “I have felt this before, this thraldom of creating.” — And this I have felt, this breathless straining, this unawareness of all save the child of my fashioning, the fruits of my brain’s sowing; and this same peace, warm, unrelated, satisfied, which is the benediction of all worthy accomplishment.

And did he not bequeath to me an unanswerable need for him, so that the word Father was the natural preliminary to any plea for forgiveness, bread, or eternal life? Where else did I get my soul’s response to beauty? From whom, other than he, could my heart catch the reflection of charity to all men? Why did I fear the thing which alone could keep me from him, which alone could prevent me from returning to his home?

And so I dreamed of the early distilling of this thing which loves and hates, which responds to music and poetry, which sorrows and rejoices, which discriminates, rejects, and accepts: which has longings and desires, moments of sullen rebellion and moments of self-dominion: this thing which can be devil and saint, toad ana swan, this thing which eludes the microscope, the knife, the stethoscope, and is man.

What is man? A chemical formula whose magical elixir is called carbon? A mere collection of cells? A complex product of biological evolution? Or . . . they were still talking — and I smiled, because I am a mere woman, and they — unknowing — are sons of God.

-oooOooo-

From the Improvement Era, November 1945 –

We Have Fallen in Love with Her …

Sister Zina Card Brown is an American, for which fact I can never lightly forgive America. Born on this side of the Atlantic, her sweetness and charm would have been an attribute to British Society such as we could have “boasted of to our American cousins for all time.

But our British pride was not to be indulged to this extent and so we concede to Lincoln’s country the right to be proud of producing such, a noble and gracious little lady as the wife of British Mission President Hugh B. Brown.

Quite frankly, and still manifesting in our confession something of the Briton’s genius for understatement, we have fallen in love with her. She has dignity and the largest capacity for loving sinners of all grades that my naughty soul, at least, has ever encountered. She has a delicious sense of humour — and her cookies are undoubtedly the most piquant to the palate ever experienced by a prosaic British Mission Home.

People like to be where she is. There is a sort of compelling charm about a woman who has learned to be in love with life and with people. Burns had it. He became great because his humility knelt to the small creatures even while his poet’s soul fraternised with God’s.

Sister Brown is President of Relief Society in Great Britain and no woman could be more perfectly fitted for such a vocation. For love, that perfect charity of which Paul spoke, is the material of which her life is made.

We welcome her to Britain, to our homes and to our hearts and we pray she will stay long beneath the British flag with her adopted people. – EDITH RUSSELL.