It is because one is apt to suspect — and not without evidence — that this great and Vital doctrine is not presented to the faithful in these days with the prominence and the persistence which are its due, that such a treatise as that to which these words are an introduction is particularly well timed, and especially welcome. Father John Eusebius Nieremberg, the author of the Del aprecio y estima de la Divina Gracia, was the son of a Tyrolese father and a Bavarian mother; but he was born in Madrid, and his upbringing and religious training was in the country and in the age which produced St. John of the Cross, Luis da Ponte, John of Avila.