What does return do when used inside an if statement?

What does the return inside the if statements do in the following code?

public void startElement(String namespaceURI, String localName,String qName, 
                                         Attributes atts) throws SAXException
{
    depth++;
    if (localName.equals("channel"))
    {
        currentstate = 0;
        return;
    }
    if (localName.equals("image"))
    {
        // record our feed data - you temporarily stored it in the item :)
        _feed.setTitle(_item.getTitle());
        _feed.setPubDate(_item.getPubDate());
    }
    if (localName.equals("item"))
    {
        // create a new item
        _item = new RSSItem();
        return;
    }
    if (localName.equals("title"))
    {
        currentstate = RSS_TITLE;
        return;
    }
    if (localName.equals("description"))
    {
        currentstate = RSS_DESCRIPTION;
        return;
    }
    if (localName.equals("link"))
    {
        currentstate = RSS_LINK;
        return;
    }
    if (localName.equals("category"))
    {
        currentstate = RSS_CATEGORY;
        return;
    }
    if (localName.equals("pubDate"))
    {
        currentstate = RSS_PUBDATE;
        return;
    }
    // if you don't explicitly handle the element, make sure you don't wind 
           // up erroneously storing a newline or other bogus data into one of our 
           // existing elements
    currentstate = 0;
}

Does it takes us out of the if statement and proceeds to next statement or it takes us out of the method startElement?