Introduction

Biography

Levy was the son of Lew­is C. Le­vy and Ann Pat­ter­son. He mar­ried twice, to Han­nah Mar­shall and Hen­ri­et­ta Cox­ey.

Levy was edu­cat­ed at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­van­ia in Phi­la­del­phia, and stu­died theo­lo­gy un­der Dr. Al­bert Barnes. He was li­censed to preach by the Cham­bers Pres­by­ter­ian Church in 1843.

In April 1844, he was bap­tized by Dr. George B. Ide, pas­tor of the First Bap­tist Church in Phi­la­del­phia. In No­vem­ber 1844, he was or­dained pas­tor of the First Bap­tist Church in West Phi­la­del­phia, stay­ing there 14 years.

Around 1858, Levy ac­cept­ed a call to the pas­tor­ate of the South Bap­tist Church in New­ark, New Jer­sey. In 1868, he re­signed and re­turned to Phi­la­del­phia as pas­tor of the Be­re­an Bap­tist Church; he re­mained here 16 years.

Levy re­tired af­ter a pas­tor­al ca­reer of al­most 40 years and en­tered the ev­an­gel­ism field.

Politically, Levy was a strong abo­li­tion­ist, no doubt in­flu­enced by the slave trade he saw when his fa­mi­ly lived in Georg­ia.

In 1856, he was in­vit­ed to give the op­en­ing pray­er at the Re­pub­li­can Na­tion­al Con­ven­tion in Phi­la­del­phia. He al­so gave the op­en­ing pray­er at the 1900 Re­pub­li­can con­ven­tion, which nom­in­at­ed Will­iam Mc­Kin­ley and Theo­dore Roo­se­velt.

Works

In 1849, the Am­eri­can Bap­tist Pub­li­ca­tion So­ci­ety is­sued its first hym­nal, The Bap­tist Harp, a New Col­lect­ion of Hymns for the Clo­set, the Fa­mi­ly, So­cial Wor­ship and Re­vi­vals. Le­vy, along with Dr. George Ide, was be­lieved to one of the driv­ing forc­es behind the book.