From the Relief Society Magazine, July 1948 –

“The Russells Did Not Go to Church,” a three-part story by Edith Russell, will begin in the August issue of the Magazine. A vital and thought-provoking narrative of the spiritual aspirations of a young girl and her search for religious truth, this contribution to Latter-day Saint literature will constitute the first appearance in our Magazine, of a young English author of great promise who is now making her home in Utah.

From the Relief Society Magazine, August 1948 –

The Russells Did Not Go to Church

By Edith Russell

Chapter 1 (of 3)

My elder brother, Michael, was reading, which means that for purposes of ordinary communication, he was quite dead.

He was not merely engrossed, he was oblivious. My mother, having passed him four times on her way to and from the kitchen, and having accommodatingly climbed over his protruding legs four times in so doing, endeavored to call to his attention the great desirability of his retiring to his room, there to continue his perusal of great literature with less inconvenience to the family at large.

Michael gave no indication of having heard. My mother continued her trips to the kitchen. She returned carrying a large bowl of hot water. She said no more, but a moment later Michael drew in his legs with a voice of protest.

“Really, Mother! Can’t a fellow …? I was reading about those chaps called Mormons,” he expostulated, as though that should explain his intense preoccupation.

“Michael!” My mother was horrified. “those dreadful people! Why, I remember when I was a girl, they visited even the best parts of town, trying to induce nice girls to leave their homes and go with them to Salt Lake City.”

Michael grinned. “Oh, Mother, come now!” he protested, gently disbelieving.

“It’s true. I never saw one myself, but at the time it was on everybody’s lips.”

Michael was turning the pages of the book, looking for some passage. “Zane Grey,” he said, “thinks they are a decent people.”

My mother spread her feathers and exuded indignation. “Michael, I shall appreciate it if you will not indulge in such literature in the future. I do not like it!”

The little woman resumed her interrupted perambulations to and from the kitchen with renewed vigor, her face a mask of disapproval. Michael looked at me, then at the book now lying in the chair. Then he shrugged and went out.

******

Six years later the second world war was moving a bloody finger across the map of Europe. Michael was in the East; his place at home was taken by my younger brother, Antony. We led quiet, uneventful lives in the small, sturdy cottage situated on the fringe of the lonely Haworth moors.

The peaceful monotony of our existence might be attributed to the fact that although we lived at least on the outskirts of the village, we were not accepted as villagers. My mother was a “city woman.” We children had been born in the city, and after fifteen years of living in the village, we were still regarded with curiosity and the sort of aloof respect accorded to strangers.

Furthermore, at no time in our lives had we made any attempt to enter that little circle of social life and common purpose, represented by the church. The Russells did not go to church. They never had, unless impelled there by new life or its surcease, or the occasional determination of a Russell bride to have the church solemnize her matrimonial contract.

We did not go to church as we did not get drunk. The family, in either case, simply would not have condoned it.

Ours was a happy family life, undeviating, unimaginative, smooth. We enjoyed solidarity as a family, but it was the nature of each of us to like to be alone.

Antony rode a great deal, as a friendly farmer was not averse to letting him exercise his horses. He was sixteen and blond, with all the energy of a colt. He would be gone all day, then come home at nightfall to eat an enormous supper in the kitchen. My mother worried about him— if he was warm enough, if he was safe. But he was like thin whipcord. He hated any kind of fuss, and was as sensitive as a girl.

Michael sweated with the Royal Air Force in Cairo. For my part I had my room and the lanes and fens surrounding the moors. I read a great deal, alone in my room. My small chamber was recognized as sacred, and no one, not even my mother, trespassed there. Michael had painted the walls when it was first given to me, and once when I was sick, he had come in to visit me. Antony was oddly shy of it, though it was not a very feminine room. It was my sanctuary. I intimately lived there.

I walked a great deal and usually alone. About a mile from the house was the parish church of St. Matthews and unfailingly in my walks, I went past the old place, a trifle curious as to what went on behind the stout Gothic walls. I was sometimes tempted to go in. On Tuesday evening the villagers would be at choir practice and the sound of their strong, country voices would float out into the mellow dusk. I used to think, vaguely, of our family conception of church people— narrow, vindictive— transcendently uncharitable. Ostensibly, they were the reason we did not go to church. We had heard that the vicar himself was an irascible gentleman, a Welshman, much given to fire and brimstone, and to denouncing the villagers who did not attend Holy Communion as devils incarnate.

The much maligned villagers had stoned him once, and the big, helmeted police force had broken up the crowd. ”Religion? Bah!” was the unvoiced opinion of our house. What did religion engender but strife and bad feeling? What emotions did it inspire other than hatred and malice and resentment?

Honor thy father as well as thy mother, the commandments said. But my father had not inspired honor in his children. He had slipped out of our lives before even our memories could claim him. Religion spelled confusion. The Russells did not go to church.

But in my walks, the old church of St. Matthews held a strange fascination for me. Walking home across the fields from Hewenden, I would mount the hill and see it lying therein the valley, oddly like a jewel in the hollow of a hand. The dying sun would be caught in its turrets; its leaded windows would flash gold, burn somberly, then fade like the embers of an untended fire.

One evening during the second summer of the war, I stopped at the gate of the church, ostensibly to admire the long, yellow tassels of the laburnum, but actually, my attention was caught by the playing of a Bach fugue on the organ. There was no one about, and quickly I crossed the wide burial ground and pushed open the immense door under the west tower.

My first impression was one of trapped sunlight— great slanting pillars of it, made tangible and golden by an omnipresent dust. My next was one of loftiness, spaciousness, supplemented by the grand austerity of Bach.

The organist, an old man I had seen often in the village, turned his head as I entered, but returned immediately to his playing. I was glad. My temerity frightened even myself and I had no wish to exchange pleasantries.

I entered a pew just within the door and sat down. I wanted to analyze myself; to say to myself, I am in church. This is St. Matthews. I am in church, and to see how it felt.

I was disloyal, of course. The Russells did not go to church. My mother and Michael and Antony, too, would think me confoundedly odd to have come here. Why had I come? I didn’t know. The music, perhaps. Curiosity.

I sat for a little while, letting my senses stray into the crannies of this adventure. The organist changed to Brahms. He played very softly. It occurred to me that in church it was only polite to pray. To say nothing would be like ignoring your host. But the idea embarrassed me. I had no idea what people said to God. It was evident, though, that in church one could not be informal with the almighty.

I looked at the altar for possible inspiration, at the great brass cross and the purple velvet runner on which were embroidered the letters I.H.S. “In his service,” perhaps they meant. I looked up at the remote, dome-like ceiling, upon which the plaster had begun to crack, and felt the immense loneliness and solitude of the place. But no words came.

The pulpit was laved by a sea of empty pews. The man at the organ ceased playing, suddenly, in the middle of a bar, gathered up his music, and disappeared through a side door. The silence was unexpected and awful. How did one pray in church? What did one say? I had a feeling God was waiting, implacably waiting.

There was a maxim in the family about courtesy— “Courtesy costs nothing.” One should be courteous to one’s host, even if he happens to be God.

Awkwardly, I slipped to my knees. The quiet pressed down on me, oppressive and weighted with awe. I put my hands together and closed my eyes— tightly.

“Dear God,” I said, “forgive me for disturbing you …” Nothing else. Nothing else would come.

I rose and hurried down the aisle, pushing open the great door beneath the west tower. A few seconds more and I was in the mild stillness of the churchyard again. The church was behind me, massive, silent— empty, yet breathing!

Michael would laugh when they wrote to tell him I had gone to church. They would all think it so funny. Perhaps it was. Perhaps I should laugh, too.

I rallied all my sense of humor, but fully marshaled, it brought no laughter to my lips. A sense of sadness oppressed me and an unaccustomed sensation of unrest. The feeling remained with me that God was waiting, waiting. And his patience was infinite.

I hurried my footsteps up the hill toward home. The cottage stood on the crest, solid, old as the church, a haven of comfort.

My mother sat before the fire, knitting— a gray thing for Antony. She looked up as I went in.

“Mother,” I said, and my voice was that of the penitent before his confessor. “Mother— I have been to church!”

My mother put down her knitting.

(To be continued)