re or pay.
_Mercenary_ has especial application to character or disposition; as, a
_mercenary_ spirit; _mercenary_ motives--_i. e._, a spirit or motives to
which money is the chief consideration or the moving principle. The
_hireling_, the _mercenary_, and the _venal_ are alike in making
principle, conscience, and honor of less account than gold or sordid
considerations; but the _mercenary_ and _venal_ may be simply open to
the bargain and sale which the _hireling_ has already consummated; a
clergyman may be _mercenary_ in making place and pay of undue importance
while not _venal_ enough to forsake his own communion for another for
any reward that could be offered him. The _mercenary_ may retain much
show of independence; _hireling_ service sacrifices self-respect as well
as principle; a public officer who makes his office tributary to private
speculation in which he is interested is _mercenary_; if he receives a
stipulated recompense for administering his office at the behest of some
leader, faction, corporation, or the like, he is both _hireling_ and
_venal_; if he gives essential advantages for pay, without subjecting
himself to any direct domination, his course is _venal_, but not
_hireling_. Compare PAY; VENIAL.

Antonyms:

disinterested, honest, incorruptible, public-spirited,
generous, honorable, patriotic, unpurchasable.

* * * * *

VENERATE.

Synonyms:

adore, honor, respect, revere, reverence.

In the highest sense, to _revere_ or _reverence_ is to hold in mingled
love and honor with something of sacred fear, as for that which while
lovely is sublimely exalted and brings upon us by contrast a sense of
our unworthiness or inferiority; to _revere_ is a wholly spiritual act;
to _reverence_ is often, tho not necessarily, to give outward expression
to the reverential feeling; we _revere_ or _reverence_ the divine
majesty. _Revere_ is a stronger word than _reverence_ or _venerate_. To
_venerate_ is to hold in exalted honor without fear, and is applied to
objects less removed from ourselves than those we _revere_, being said
especially of aged persons, of places or objects having sacred
associations, and of abstractions; we _venerate_ an aged pastor, the
dust of heroes or martyrs, lofty virtue or self-sacrifice, or some great
cause, as that of civil or religious liberty; we do not _venerate_ God,
but _revere_ or _reverence_ him. We _adore_ with a hu