Little drops of water,

Little grains of sand,

Make the mighty ocean

And the pleasant land.

Thus the little minutes,

Humble though they be,

Make the mighty ages

Of eternity.

}}

History

In 1845, when studying phonography in Stephen Pearl Andrews' and Augustus F. Boyle's class, Boston, Carney was asked to give an impromptu exercise on the blackboard. Only ten minutes were allowed, and in that time, she wrote the first verse of "Little Things". It became a favorite of children in Sunday school exhibitions from that time on, and was recited and sung thousands of times. It was first published in a Sunday school paper, Gospel Teacher (renamed, Myrtle).{{sfn|Kilcup|Sorby|2013|p=541}}{{sfn|Hanson|1884|p=170-}}{{efn|For different accounts of the publishing history of this poem, see Gardner's, Famous Poems from Bygone Days.{{sfn|Gardner|2013|p=65}}}}

Soon after her phonographic poem was published, it appeared in the Methodist Sunday-School Advocate, with an additional verse about missionary pennies, to which she laid no claim.{{sfn|Hanson|1884|p=170-}}

This poem came to be published uncredited as a children's rhyme and hymn in many 19th century magazines and books, sometimes attributed to Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, Daniel Clement Colesworthy, or Frances S. Osgood, but the earliest publications of it clearly are those of Carney.{{efn|See E. R. Hanson in Our Woman Workers: Biographical Sketches of Women Eminent in the Universalist Church for Literary, Philanthropic and Christian Work (1881),{{sfn|Hanson|1884|p=170-}} as well as Familiar Quotations 9th edition (1906) edited by John Bartlett, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999) by Elizabeth Knowles and Angela Partington, and The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), ed. Fred R. Shapiro.}} A later final verse read: