caveat: consider this source:
Elijah C. Clark, The victory practical handbook for ministers
(Church of God, Cleveland TN 1944) p 229-30
Last words of atheists
Voltaire: "I give you half of what I am worth, if you will give me six
months of lives."
Hobbs, the infidel philosopher: "If I had the whole world to dispose of, I
would give it to live one day."
Gibbon, the historian, a skeptic: "The present is a fleeting moment, the
past is no more, and my prospect of futurity is dark and doubtful."
Phillip III, king of Spain [ an ardent Roman Catholic -tpk ]:
"Ah! how happy it would have been for me had I spent these twenty-three years I
have held my kingdom in retirement."
Duke of Buckingham, after a life of folly and sin: "Oh! what a prodigal
have I been of the most valuable of all possessions--time! I have squandered it
away with the persuasion that it was lasting; and now, when a few days would be
worth a hecatomb of worlds, I cannot flatter myself with the prospect of a half
dozen hours."
Thomas Payne, who rejected all religion, and whose last utterances were in
anguish of a soul in despair, cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? I would give worlds, if I had them, if The Age of Reason had never
been published. O Lord, help me! - - - [?] Help me! Stay with me! It is
hell to be left alone!"
The last words of the atheist Mirabeau: "My sufferings are intolerable; I
have within me a hundred years of life but not a moment's courage. Give me more
laudanum that I may not think of eternity."