Speaking before the Liberal Club at luncheon yesterday, the Reverend Alden H. Clark of Newton, an officer of the American Board of Foreign Missions, discussed the subject "India finding her place in World affairs". In the course of his speech, Mr. Clark, who has spent 14 years in the East, taking an active part in missionary work there, said:

"A newcomer in India receives two ideas of the country--that of size and complexity on the one hand, and of change and crisis on the other. India covers an area as great as the continent of Europe, not including Russia, and if superimposed on the United States, would stretch from Maine to the Carribean and into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

"This vast territory is as complex racially as is Europe. Made up as it is of such a heterogeneous collection of races, it is not difficult to see why there has never been any permanent calm in the country. In regard to religion, the process of change is not new. Budhism swept over India centuries ago, and then receded. It is now slowly regaining its place among the people.

"The war awoke in India a desire for a greater degree of self-government, stimulating her slowly developing consciousness and groping toward an ideal of nationalism. Tagore, the famous Indian philosopher and poet, says that his ambition is to make of the culture centers of India a meeting-place for the civilizations of the East and West".

In concluding, Mr. Clark declared that one of the greatest contributions India can make to the world is the lesson in how to attain high intellectual and spiritual development in spite of comparatively little economic progress.