During these earlier years he confined himself almost entirely to working in water-colours, though by his way of using the medium he gained technical results which had more the strength and richness of oils than the delicate transparency of water-colour. The few essays he made in oil-painting at this time were not pictures for exhibition purposes but pure decorations, like the panels for a painted coffer designed by William Morris, and a triptych, with the "Annunciation" as the central panel, and the "Adoration of the Magi" on the wings, which was commissioned by Mr. Bodley for St. Paul's Church at Brighton. Definite recognition of the position he had gained among the younger water-colourists came at the beginning of 1864, when he was elected, with Fred Walker, an associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours. He was advanced to full membership of the Society in 1868, but resigned in 1870 because a foolish accusation of impropriety was brought against one of the compositions he exhibited. He returned, however, in 1886 and remained a member till his death. By the paintings he showed in the gallery of the "Old Society" he much increased his reputation among discriminating art lovers as an artist of no ordinary importance. People who had known nothing of his work before found something so new in manner and so distinctive in purpose in the achievements of this creator of poetic fantasies that he was given more attention than usually comes to a man who sets before the public things of an unaccustomed type. That he amply deserved this attention cannot be questioned, for already he had acquired sufficient command over the technicalities of water-colour to enable him to put into a quite convincing form fancies which needed particular delicacy of interpretation. Of course, he had still very much to learn--no one knew better than he did how necessary was strenuous labour to overcome his deficiencies as a craftsman--but his deep sincerity gave character and meaning to his paintings, and the poetic beauty of his pictorial inventions fully excused what defects there were in his executive methods.