This is always makes me laugh when i read it. I've taken this from Horace Becks, Folklore and The Sea, which is a great book written by a man who grew up on Buzzards Bay.
This tale is from the Chesapeake Bay, early 20th century, about a Reverend Joshua Thomas--one of the few preachers who became a hero to mariners.
On Tangier Island the waterman tell many anecdotes of the days of this great man. One tells about his assistant, a young man whom Joshua Thomas never allowed to preach a sermon. The young man became despondent , until one day his superior told him to prepare a sermon for the following Sunday. The young man was delighted, and he worked up a real humdinger and committed it to memory. Sunday rolled around, and the young minister found himself in the pulpit struck with a bad case of stage fright.
"Now I have a grand sermon for you today. One that has a message, and I want you all to study the sermon and see what you can learn from it. The text is, "And he cast forth seven anchors........" At this point the young minister's mind went blank. He gazed wildly about but there was no help. Truly his God had forsaken him. " And he cast forth seven anchors...." Nothing. "And he cast forth seven anchors.........." Still nothing. Desperate, the young man repeated the phrase seven times, at which point an old skipper in the back of the church bawled out, "Thet's right Reverend. We got the point. That's forty-nine anchors he's put down already, and God knows there ain't no vessel goin' to drag with all that ground tackle."